


Foxholes

by wickedthoughts



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alcohol, Angst, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Sam Wilson, Blood, Canonical Character Death, Castration, Character Study, Cissexism, Civil War Fix-It, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dehumanization, Electrocution, Force-Feeding, Guilt, HYDRA Trash Party, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Humiliation, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jewish Wanda Maximoff, M/M, Masturbation, Medical Torture, Mental Health Issues, Mentioned Peggy Carter/Gabe Jones - Freeform, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Brock Rumlow/Sinthea Schmidt, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Misogyny, Mood Whiplash, Mutilation, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Past Bucky Barnes/Original Female Character(s), Past Riley/Sam Wilson, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Racism, Rape, Self-Denial, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Slurs, Starvation, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Telepathic Wanda Maximoff, Torture, Unreliable Narrator, Victim Blaming, Vomiting, Wanda Maximoff is Romani, past Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-03
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-29 05:07:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 73,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7671241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wickedthoughts/pseuds/wickedthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's been hiding in plain sight for so long, but he can no longer hide from what's happened to Bucky, and what Bucky means to him.</p><p>And Bucky? Bucky's been hiding, too, but Steve's going to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, I'm trying my hand at MCU fanfic. Here's my typical, fucked-up fare.
> 
> Read the tags/warnings, and if something isn't your bag, please don't read. Seriously.
> 
> I play around with MCU and Marvel Comics canon, but most of this is generally MCU canon-compliant. It starts in November 2015, and will not be Civil War-compliant.
> 
> This story is largely inspired by the wonderful [Jackeline Harkness](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackeline_Harkness/pseuds/Jackeline%20Harkness) and her amazing [Snowfall](http://archiveofourown.org/series/491050) Series. If you like this story and haven't read hers, well, what are you waiting for? Show her some love!

* * *

Steve had been extra conscientious about opening strange emails ever since the virus scare at his old apartment. S.H.I.E.L.D. had still been around then, and the techies had quickly fixed the issue, but Steve had been embarrassed yet again at being the old man flummoxed by the finer points of navigating modern technology. He’d been given the speech about hackers and viruses and internet safety for what felt like the hundredth time, though it was probably only the second. Steve had nodded and thanked the overworked young agent for her time when she’d finished, and swore to himself that he wouldn’t need this talk a third time.

Now that S.H.I.E.L.D. was gone and Steve had moved from his apartment into the Avengers compound he was more determined than ever not to screw up on this basic technology front. Stark would never let Steve hear the end of it if Friday had to save Steve and the compound’s network from a simple virus attachment. Tony never let Steve hear the end of a lot of things, but Steve put up with it because he liked living here with the rest of the Avengers. He liked the company, even if he’d never admit it, especially not to Natasha, with the knowing smirks she sent his way when she knew he was looking. It almost felt like being in the barracks again, albeit far more luxurious barracks than any soldier he’d known had ever seen. Hell, he liked Stark, too, he could admit to himself. Ever since he’d seen the man fly a nuke into another dimension to save New York City, he’d developed a respect for Tony which had blossomed into friendship. Even if Stark could be more infuriating than his father, who had been quite infuriating in his own right.

Besides, even if the compound hadn’t been an option, there was no way he’d have gone back to that apartment. The place where his carefully constructed new life had begun to unravel before he’d even really accepted that it was his. Where his cute next door neighbor had turned out to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. operative sent to spy on him, and where Fury had come to find him before being shot by- by-

By Bucky? By the Winter Soldier? Steve had a hard time differentiating between the two, given the shaky intel he had on what had been done to Bucky in the seventy years since he’d fallen from the side of a mountain and Steve had slept in frozen ignorance of the horrors being inflicted on the best friend of his childhood. Guilt twisted in his chest and he took a deep breath.

_Not your fault._

He heard Nat’s voice in his head automatically, followed immediately by Sam’s. Nat’s carefully measured _Not your fault, Steve,_ and then Sam’s sincere _We’re gonna find him, okay?,_ and he felt guilty that he felt guilty, as absurd as that was. Maybe he felt guilty for doubting his new friends’ assurances. Or maybe he felt guilty for things in the past he thought he’d let go of-

He’d looked for Bucky, back in 1945. Of course he’d looked, after Zola had been apprehended, and while Jones and Dernier kept an eye on the prisoner, he and the remaining Commandos had scoured the snowy ravine for Bucky’s body. Steve had been determined to find it, his eyes narrow slits against the cold, wind, and tears. He had to bring what remained of Bucky back, for Mr. and Mrs. Barnes; for Rebecca, Ruthie, and John. That was what he’d told himself, and Dum Dum, Morita, and Monty. Deep down, though, he’d known his real, selfish reason. He had to see for himself, that Bucky was really dead. He had to _see-_

They hadn’t found him, of course, because there’d been nothing to find. HYDRA had moved quickly, and Steve had been too slow, and he hadn’t found him in time-

_It’s not your fault, Steve-_

_We’ll find him, man, you know we will. Got a lead from a former S.H.I.E.L.D. agent in Vienna, heading out tomorrow night with Wanda to check it out-_

But Steve hadn’t found Bucky before, and he had the feeling, like a rock in the bottom of his stomach, that he wouldn’t find him now, either. Whatever had happened to his friend, the full extent only hinted at in cold, clinical terms in the dossier Natasha had acquired for him, Steve couldn’t help but believe that he’d never see Bucky again. Even if they caught up to the Winter Soldier, if Sam and Wanda managed to find him in Vienna, Bucky was gone. He’d let him go, let Bucky fall off that train and not found him when Bucky needed him the most, and now Bucky was gone and that HYDRA shell was running around wearing his face-

 _He pulled you out of the river,_ his own voice in his head, for once. _He’s still in there. You know he’s still in there. He beat you, shot you, let you fall, but he found you and pulled you out of the river._ **_He_ ** _managed to save you when you fell, which is more than you did for him-_

Steve swiped a hand over his face. He glanced at the clock. 11:15 AM. He’d already eaten breakfast at 6 and worked out for the first time today at 8, it was too early to eat again. He had a very strict schedule, it helped keep him focused. He should check his email messages, see if there were any new missions from Tony or anything. Something to keep his mind off his doubts and failures. He headed to his room.

*

The email was so well-disguised as being from Natasha that once he’d flipped open his laptop and signed into his account, Steve didn’t even hesitate to open it and click on the video screen that popped up in the body of the message. _Hey Steve, this is important_ the subject line read, and his account assured him the message was from his contact _Natalia Romanova,_ on one of her many email addresses, but one he knew well.

The video’s intro was a dark screen with white text. TO CAPTAIN AMERICA, LOVE HYDRA. Unease pricked his heart. Surely this wasn’t from Nat- ?

By the time he realized that this absolutely wasn’t from Natasha, when the last doubt of it evaporated at about the eight-second mark when he recognized the naked man restrained in the medical facility, another man in a white coat sitting on a stool between his legs, there was no way in Hell he would have shut it off. If this was fake- though he knew it wasn’t- he still needed to see it, if only to ascertain _why_ someone would make something like this. If it was hacking into the Avenger’s mainframe, Friday would shut it down quickly. He could deal with Stark’s teasing if that happened.

 _“Do it,”_ a harsh voice barked offscreen in Russian, subtitled at the bottom of the grainy footage for Steve’s maximum suffering. _“We don’t have all day, doctor.”_

The video was as dark and jarring as videos from the 1940’s ever were, but Steve could see what was happening well enough. He could see what the doctor was doing between the splayed legs of the one-armed prisoner struggling as best he could for being strapped to the gurney. Steve had seen Bucky naked before. Of course he had, as children, and in the close, unforgiving proximity of bunking together during a war. In the video, Bucky had already been prepped and shaved before the camera started rolling. His flaccid cock was taped up to his left inner thigh, and he was hairless everywhere but his eyebrows and the top of his head, not just the incision site on his groin. Steve winced as the doctor brought a scalpel down to a carefully marked line on Bucky’s scrotum and began to cut it open. He didn’t want to watch this, but he couldn’t _not_ watch, so he sat and stared, helplessly apoplectic as he heard Bucky moan with pain behind something in his mouth.

This had to have been shot a few months after Bucky’s presumed death, given his appearance, the length of his hair, and the way the stump of his left arm didn’t appear to be bothering him. Steve thought all of this distractedly, every instinct in him futilely screaming that he do something, _anything,_ to stop this, as the doctor used a pair of blunt-headed forceps to poke inside the gash he’d made in the scrotal sac and grasp the left testicle. He pulled it as far as he could out of Bucky, and Bucky’s back arched off the table as far as the restraints would allow, his moans abruptly becoming muffled screams.

Steve’s hands had balled into shaking fists awhile ago, but now he felt his ragged fingernails tearing into the flesh of his palms. Blood dripped into his lap, and he let his nails dig deeper, not wanting to let the wounds heal quite yet as he bled along with Bucky in the video. The doctor was using his right hand to hold Bucky’s testicle in the grip of the first pair of forceps, his left grabbing a crude hemostat from the tray of medical implements on a stand beside him. Bucky twisted from side-to-side in horrified agony as more dampened screams ripped from his throat, and he arched off the table again when the hemostat clamped onto the cord feeding his left testicle, crushing blood vessels. Steve couldn’t begin to imagine how much pain this was causing- _had caused-_ Bucky, but his own balls twinged in solidarity. The doctor’s right hand discarded the forceps, relying on the smaller clamps to hold the organ where it needed to be, and the scalpel came back to hack and slice at membrane and cord until the testicle was no longer attached to the body it had belonged to. Bucky never stopped screaming.

_“One down, one to go.”_

Steve bristled at the casual jocularity in the unseen Russian’s tone. The doctor placed the severed testicle on a small cloth on the stand and took up his first pair of forceps once more.

_“Put the camera on the American’s face for this part.”_

The camera was brought closer to Bucky’s face, thankfully away from the carnage between his legs. Steve could see a leather strap clenched between Bucky’s teeth, and the tears falling from his bulging, disbelieving eyes. His screams had died briefly, but they started up again, his nostrils flaring, and even though Steve couldn’t see what was happening, he could tell when forcep, hemostat, and scalpel did their work. Each jolt of Bucky’s body, each scream, each time his eyes widened impossibly further, told Steve exactly what torture was being exacted on his friend. Steve’s hands and wrists were wet with the blood from his palms, and he wanted so badly to bash the face of that doctor through the back of his skull.

He knew when it was over, because Bucky deflated, finally stopping his struggles as his screams faded to deep, tortured groans inside his ragged throat. His head fell weakly to the side as Steve watched in simmering anger and grief. Bucky’s streaming eyes clenched, and his chest rose and fell rapidly.

 _“Hail, HYDRA,”_ the first voice said smoothly, still off-camera.

 _“Hail, HYDRA,”_ the butchering doctor repeated, also in Russian, speaking for the first time as the camera moved to bring him back into frame. He set down his bloody instruments next to the pair of organs he’d unnecessarily removed from their healthy young owner, peeling off his bloody gloves.

 _“One step closer to where we need to be,”_ this voice was familiar and it spoke in subtitled German. _“Thank you, gentlemen.”_

Zola’s toad-like face took over the entire frame, a small smile tugging at his lips as he fumbled to take the camera from whomever had been holding it. The camera was jostled and twisted until it refocused on the lower half of Bucky’s body, a leering love letter to the atrocity that had just been inflicted on him. Bucky’s cock remained taped out of the way, and the loose folds of his empty scrotum hung underneath, stained in blood. Steve didn’t want to watch any more. He felt nauseous with revulsion, and his rage threatened to consume him. He needed to throw up, or hit something hard enough to feel it break beneath his hands, but he did neither. He had nowhere to vomit without making a mess, and if he broke yet another computer screen- through clumsiness or frustration- he’d never hear the end of it. So he stayed, rooted in the chair at his desk, and watched. It was like he was there for Bucky, even if he wasn’t, hadn’t been, had essentially _let_ this happen to him. His palms ached, and he welcomed the pain.

 _“Beautiful work,”_ Zola was commenting from behind the camera, proud voice raised over Bucky’s cries. _“And the serum is already beginning to heal the scars, look. Didn’t I tell you there’d be no need for stitches?”_

 _“His balls, show them to him,”_ the first man said in Russian, presumably to the doctor. _“He needs to see.”_

Steve felt the nausea rise in the back of his throat again, and he swallowed it down for Bucky’s sake. The red line at the bottom of the video informed him that there was still over an hour to go in this testament to what HYDRA was capable of, and of just how badly Steve had let his friend down.

Bucky’s groans rose sharply, and the camera was jostled and retransferred back to the original holder. The lens moved to Bucky’s face as the strap was being removed from his teeth. His eyes remained tightly shut when Zola’s hand touched his cheek, but his lips parted.

“Kill me,” Bucky choked out, a growl of misery and defeat. This was subtitled as well. “Please- just kill me.”

“Oh no, Mr. Barnes,” Zola sneered in a facsimile of kindness, switching to heavily accented English. “We’re not finished with you yet. Now, open your eyes.”

Bucky refused with a weary shake of his head, but something was done offscreen to make him convulse, yell, and comply. The camera moved further back as Bucky’s bleary eyes focused on the glands being dangled in front of his face by the doctor. Bucky gulped and stared, his face shocked and wan. The doctor swung his balls cruelly in front of his face, and Bucky’s eyes followed them despondently.

“You’re not a man anymore,” the Russian spoke in perfect English, but still didn’t show himself. “You barely were before, and now you can stop pretending. We’ve done you a kindness, really.”

Bucky opened his mouth as if to make a retort, but closed it just as quickly. He continued to stare at his balls, his eyes wet but not weeping, his body wracked with little spasms of pain.

“Haven’t we, American? Haven’t we done you a kindness in cutting off your useless little balls?”

Whatever had been done to make him open his eyes was repeated, and Bucky’s entire body shuddered horribly as he let out a wordless, keening cry.

“Haven’t we?”

Bucky’s trembling lips opened and a soft noise passed through them.

“What was that?”

The men in the room may not have heard him, but Steve had. Through time, and distance, Steve comprehended what Bucky had said. He would have recognized his own name coming from Bucky’s mouth no matter what.

“What was that, you worthless, neutered dog?”

Bucky convulsed in pain and repeated himself more loudly.

“S-steve,” he spat, hatred flaring in his eyes as he looked between the men who had castrated him. “Cap-captain America. He’s gonna kick your Nazi asses all the way back to- ”

His eyes widened and he convulsed again.

 _“You didn’t tell him?”_ Zola asked in German, mildly curious as he looked offscreen.

 _“There was no need,”_ came the Russian’s reply. _“Not until this moment.”_

“You bastards are gonna die,” Bucky groaned, laughing wildly through the pain. “Steve will come for me, and then you’re all gonna die!”

“You listen to me, American.”

The Russian spoke with authority, pushing the doctor aside as he leaned into the camera frame for the first time. All that could be seen was the back of his head, short dark hair contained under a military hat. He grabbed Bucky’s cheeks, forcing him to look into his face. Bucky glared at him with the desperate anger of a man who had nothing left to lose, and his lips twitched in a hopeless sneer of weak defiance.

“If you’re holding out hope that your friend, your precious Captain is coming to save you, I have some bad news for you. Your Captain is dead. He died months ago, a few months after he abandoned you to our hands. His plane went down in the middle of the ocean. He’s dead.”

“No, you’re lying.”

Bucky’s eyes went wide, and Steve could see the fear in them.

“I assure you, I’m not.”

“He’s not,” Zola agreed. “Why else do you think they let me come back to Europe?”

“No,” Bucky’s newfound resolve was fading quickly. “No- ”

“Even if he _were_ alive, which he’s not,” the Russian interrupted. “He’s not. We’ll show you the newspapers and newsreels to prove it once we have you back in your cell, but if he _were_ alive, what makes you think he’d come for you? He thinks you’re dead. He let you die in his mind. He’s not coming for you.”

“No,” Bucky whispered, defeated. And, oh, how that made Steve’s gut clench, the fact that they’d tortured his friend, literally cut off his fucking balls, and this- _this-_ was what was finally breaking him.

“He let us have you,” the Russian continued. “He let us do this to you. And if he could see you now, why on Earth would he want to save you? You let him down, too. You let yourself fall. You let yourself be captured and turned into an unmanned _thing._ If your Captain were still alive, he’d want nothing to do with you. And you know it, don’t you?”

The cruel subtitles faded from the screen as Bucky made a sound like the quiet howl of a wounded animal, but it was cut short by Steve’s bleeding fist reducing the laptop to shards before he gave in to his nausea. He fell to his hands and knees and vomited his breakfast on the floor. He’d need a new laptop, and probably a new carpet what with the blood and bile, but he didn’t care.

He could deal with the teasing. It was the least of what he deserved.

He couldn’t hear Nat or Sam’s assurances in his head anymore

_Good._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning for graphic rape in this chapter.

* * *

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there, on his hands and knees, staring at the mess he’d made on the carpet, when there was a sharp knock on his door.

“Steve?”

Natasha’s voice was concerned underneath her affected veneer of indifference, and Steve had the familiar, accusatory thought that Natasha must have him surveilled.

“Steve? I thought I heard something, can I come in?”

Steve scrambled to his knees, glancing first at his clock- 12:09 PM, four minutes late for lunch- and then at the door.

“Y-yeah, come in!”

He knew Natasha would come in if he didn’t answer, and maybe she’d come in even if he told her to go away. This was easier. He was exhausted emotionally and physically, and besides, it was _Nat._

The door opened and Natasha took in the scene in her quick, efficient manner. Distress flooded her features and she rushed to Steve’s side.

“Oh my god, Steve! Are- are you alright? Here, let’s get you on the bed.”

He shouldn’t be surprised by how strong she was, he thought as Natasha helped him stand and guided him to his bed. He _knew_ how strong she was, yet it always caught him off-guard. Such a strong woman, in such a small body. She reminded him a little of Peggy. He ignored the guilt that flooded him at the thought of Peggy. When was the last time he’d gone to visit her in the hospital? When was the last time she’d actually remembered that he wasn’t a ghost from her past? He’d thought he’d loved her, but had he really? Had he really, when he could abandon her to die alone in a hospital ward because it made his despair a little more unbearable whenever he saw her in her shriveled senility?

Was that the real reason he hadn’t found Bucky yet? Because he selfishly didn’t want Bucky to cause that same despair? A despair which was now made a hundred, a thousand, some larger, infinite number of times worse now that he’d seen that video-

But really what had he thought it had been like for Bucky? He’d known how horribly they must have treated him. He’d read the words _torture_ and _brainwashing through experimental electrolysis_ in that file from Natasha, but he’d never suspected the true extent of the damage, the physical and mental torture combining to worry his friend away like hounds on a fox’s carcass until there was nothing but a bleeding skeleton left. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, but now he had to. God, he was a terrible man, a terrible friend. Having the nerve to call himself _Captain America,_ put on a costume, and play hero while actual good men like Bucky Barnes were tortured, mutilated, and-  

“Here,” Natasha helped him sit on his bed, and her voice brought him back to the situation at hand. “I’m going to go get you some water, alright?”

Steve could only nod as Natasha disappeared through the open door. Water would be good, he thought dispassionately. Necessary, with all the fluids he’d just lost. He could still eat lunch and have his second work out, it wasn’t even 12:30 yet. Yeah, all he needed was some water.

Natasha returned quickly with a full glass, and Steve drained it in one gulp. He clutched the empty cup in his fingers, muscles quivering as he stared at the distorted reflections he saw in it.

“What happened, Steve?”

Natasha glanced surreptitiously at the broken laptop, then back to Steve.

“I- ” Steve faltered, torn between telling Nat the truth, and wondering if she already knew and had kept this horrible secret from him. “There was an email- a video- _Bucky- ”_

He saw Nat tense when he invoked Bucky’s name, and he remembered her own turbulent history with the Winter Soldier. That was just what she’d told him, and what he’d seen for himself. He was sure there was more she wasn’t saying.

“What about Barnes?”

She asked neutrally, her eyes flicking back briefly to the remains of the laptop before refocusing on his face.

“Did you know?” Steve suddenly had to know. The urgency pounded in his brain, and he grabbed Natasha’s shoulder. Not violently, but firmly. “Did you know?”

“Did I know what?”

Nat seemed genuinely baffled, and Steve almost believed her. Almost, but he had to be sure. Natasha knew _everything_ , how could she not have known about this?

“About- about Bucky. About what they did to him, at the beginning- before- ”

He couldn’t say it, but Nat’s eyes widened in understanding. She was always one step ahead of everybody, her brain whirling, putting puzzle pieces together.

“Did- did they- _sterilize_ him?”

“Yes,” Steve answered, almost relieved that she’d said it for him. It was such a strange word, almost too elegant for the situation, but it was accurate. “God, Nat, they sent me a video- ”

He closed his mouth, feeling nauseous yet again. Natasha’s eyes closed briefly.

“Fuck,” she breathed. “Shit. I mean, they did that to me, too, but I didn’t think- I mean, I wasn’t _sure-_ there wasn’t enough evidence to bother you with the idea, or else I would have- ”

“They did,” Steve interrupted her flatly. “And someone sent me a video of it. From your email address.”

He hadn’t meant it as an accusation, merely a statement of fact, but Nat’s eyes opened, looking hurt, before her gaze hardened with steely purpose. She stood.

“Here. I’ll go get my tablet, and then I want you to show me. Oh, and you should probably change your clothes, you’ve got a little- ”

She made a gesture at his chest, and he looked down at the flecks of vomit on his white T-shirt. She was gone by the time he looked back up, the door closing softly behind her before he could respond to anything she’d said. Just as well. He felt guilty that he hadn’t connected her experiences with the darkest branches of the USSR to what HYDRA had done to Bucky, though their blatant similarities all-but smacked him in the face now that he thought about them. He’d known what they’d done to her, had heard it from her own mouth months ago, but he had the luxury of viewing it with the same detachment as he’d viewed the information in Bucky’s file. He felt _evil_ that a small part of him wanted that luxury back.

He had to watch the rest of that horror show. He had to see. He had to know everything that had been done to Bucky in order to get him back once they found him. He had to watch, and it would be nice to have someone with him. Someone who knew just what HYDRA was capable of; someone who had suffered at the hands of similarly sadistic people. He wanted Natasha to watch with him, although he had no idea how to ask her. He’d always been bad at asking for help.

Fleetingly, he wondered if Bucky would want _anyone_ to see that video, no matter their shared life experiences, and in the same heartbeat he grimaced because he was pretty sure that he knew the answer to that. Then he wondered if there was enough left of Bucky to care anymore, and, if there was, if that part of Bucky hated Steve as much as he knew he deserved.

He stood and pulled off his shirt and sweatpants, tossing them into the laundry basket. The blood had soaked through to his boxer-briefs, so he removed those as well and they joined the rest of his clothes in the basket. He stared down at his body, the hard lines of his muscles and the soft, ample flesh between his legs covered in neatly trimmed hair, and he marveled that looking at himself naked was yet another item to be added to the list of Things Steve Feels Guilty About. This list was not documented in his notebooks, or anywhere except his mind, but he remembered it just as well.

_Things Steve Feels Guilty About-_

Steve made his way to his dresser.

_Section: Bucky Barnes-_

He quickly pulled on a new pair of underwear.

_Subheading: How I let my best friend fall to his death and failed to retrieve his body afterward-_

He thought about putting on another pair of sweatpants, but chose jeans instead.

 _Addendum: How I let my best friend fall to his_ **_presumed_ ** _death, failed to rescue him from HYDRA, and went to sleep for almost a century while he was brainwashed and tortured into a tool for HYDRA-_

Steve grabbed an identical white T-shirt out of the drawer and violently shoved it over his head, swearing when it ripped in two.

 _Addendum Pt. 2: How I let my best friend fall to his_ **_presumed_ ** _death, failed to rescue him from HYDRA, and went to sleep for almost a century while he was brainwashed and tortured into a tool for HYDRA,_ **_which included, but is not remotely limited to- to being fucking_ ** **castrated,** **_and where the fuck was I? Where the fuck was I? Why couldn’t I- ? Why didn’t I- ?-_ **

_It’s not your fault, Steve-_

Nat’s words. Just like Peggy’s. And, just like Peggy, he didn’t believe her. No matter how desperately he wanted to.

 **_Yes it is,_ ** he screamed at the Natasha in his head, silencing her once more. **_Yes it fucking is!_ **

The real Natasha came back with the tablet, as well as one of Stark’s cleaning robots. It hovered behind her into the room and began doing its measurable best on the mess he’d made of the carpet while Nat propped the small, flat screen up on his desk, sweeping the first computer’s remnants to the side. She pulled up a second chair, sat, and waited for Steve to finish putting on his replacement T-shirt and stumble his way to the first chair. She was so graceful, he thought, especially compared to him. Lethal beauty, deadly grace. He was so grateful for her friendship. He was terrified of how that friendship would inevitably end, and of how he would undoubtedly be the one to destroy it.

He sat, slowly reaching his hands towards the device on his desk. He hated touchscreens, but he said nothing as his fingers fumbled through icons and the onscreen keyboard to enter his password. This was a minor inconvenience, and his own damn fault besides. Nat waited, silently and patiently, and he was grateful for that, too.

The email still sat at the top of his inbox, marked as read, taunting him with the illusion of its innocuousness. He jabbed at it with his right index finger.

“Damn it,” Natasha grumbled quietly as she looked it over. “I’m sorry, Steve, I have no idea how the hell I got hacked.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said rotely, hoping he’d injected false warmth into his tone. “Someone just really wanted my day to go south.”

At least opening the email hadn’t been a massive screw-up on his part. Anyone else would probably have done the same, even Nat.

“Yeah,” she said distractedly, pulling her cell phone from her jacket pocket. “Hang on, let me just fix this.”

She focused intently on it for a few minutes while Steve waited, her fingers gliding over the screen. In the interim, the robot left the room with a series of beeps that sounded suspiciously like grumbling. When Steve looked down at the carpet there was a small stain remaining. Noticeable, yes, but he was impressed with the robot’s ability nonetheless. The sharp odor of disinfectant hung in the air.

When Natasha announced that she was finished, he tried not to be surprised by how quickly it had taken her. He didn’t want to be the old man, struggling to keep up with her explanations of _“froze the account”_ and _“having Friday run a trace, hopefully shouldn’t take too long”_ and _“I sent you a message from the account I’ll be using now, just refresh the page.”_

Steve refreshed the page and saw two new messages. One from a new contact, _Nadine Roman,_ subject line _Yes, this is me, Steve :),_ and he would have quirked an eyebrow at her for both the name and the smiley face if he hadn’t seen the second message, sitting unread over the hateful message that had started all of this. Contact: _Natalia Romanova,_ subject line: _Did you enjoy the show?_

“Shit,” Natasha said quietly. “They’re good. Friday!”

“Yes, Ms. Romanoff?”

Friday’s helpful voice came through the speakers in the ceiling, and Steve let Nat and Friday’s words wash over him as he stared at the subject line, transfixed with fury and morbid curiosity. He was half-cognizant of the conversation between woman and machine ending, and before he realized what he was doing, he reached out and tapped the screen.

“Steve, wait- ”

Too late. As before, there was no text in the body of the message, just a dark video box with a large _play_ icon in the center. Steve could feel Natasha watching him, but she said nothing more. He didn’t play the video, simply tapped the _back_ arrow at the top of the tablet.

“I didn’t finish the first one,” he said darkly. Adamantly. He didn’t look at Nat. “I have to finish it.”

“Do you want me here?”

Steve may have been bad at asking for help, but Natasha was good at reading him. He was so grateful.

“Yeah, please. If- if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all, Steve.”

He brought the first message back up, hit the video’s _play_ button and quickly paused it on the mocking words in the title shot. He scanned through the red progress bar at the bottom until he found the place where he’d left off. Steve’s cheeks burned with a combination of anger and humiliation on Bucky’s behalf when he brought his friend’s anguished black-and-white face to full screen. He still couldn’t look at Nat.

“Just tell me what you need, Steve,” Natasha said softly, laying a light hand on his trembling forearm. “If you need me to stay, if you need me to go, if you need me to touch you, or _not_ touch you, just tell me. Okay?”

But he was bad at that. The asking. The needing. He wanted to do it on his own, always had. He’d take people along for the ride, but it was always ultimately The Steve Show. No wonder he’d been bad at making friends, and keeping them. No wonder he’d never found a lover. Before the serum, he’d blamed that on shallow girls, but he hadn’t done much better after he’d gotten handsome and healthy. It was other people who reached out to _him,_ when they were thrown together by external forces. That had been his relationship with Peggy. With Bucky.

_Look what that gets them, huh? Heartbreak, and-_

He stared at his friend’s grainy profile contemplatively, as if the act of pressing _play_ would be the cause of Bucky’s further torture. As if closing the window and deleting the message would undo all that had been done, make sure nothing else ever happened to him. Don’t watch, and Bucky would be somewhere out in the world, old as Peggy, but happy, surrounded by his wife and children and grandchildren, and not- not-

He shook his head. He was being ridiculous.

“Steve?”

Her hand was still on his arm, and he both hated it and needed it. Why couldn’t he look at her?

“This- this is good, just this for now,” he stammered out. “I’ll- I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” Nat tried to inject a measure of levity into her voice. “But I swear to God, Rogers, if you break my tablet- ”

He wanted to respond with similar repartee. _Oh, what? You know Stark will get you a new, better one by this evening, right?_

“No promises,” Steve said instead, a gravelly warning.

Natasha didn’t say anything in response, and he still couldn’t look at her to see if he’d hurt her. He started up the video. He’d timed it perfectly, jumping into the middle of Bucky’s wailing cry as whatever they were doing to cause him pain off-camera made him thrash against the gurney’s straps. It went on longer than the other times before, and when Bucky finally slumped, boneless, Steve could see the light in his eyes had dimmed significantly. His face was blank, his mouth open and drooling. Steve felt guilty for how numb the image made him.

_Because we’ll get him back. We will._

_Not your fault._

Nat kept her hand gently on Steve’s arm for the duration of the video, never flinching or grasping. A solid rock for him to cling to. He was so grateful, and he almost believed her silent assurances.

In the video, the Russian man asked Bucky a few more derisive questions, but Bucky was too far gone to make any indication that he’d heard. They made him convulse three more times, but by the third Bucky wasn’t screaming anymore. His eyes were wide, dry, and so empty, incapable of focusing on anything, not even when the Russian slapped him hard across the face. He flinched, but otherwise didn’t seem to register the assault.

 _“I think he’s had enough for now,”_ Zola said, flustered. _“The procedure requires that he be at least partially cognizant. If we destroy his mind completely, he’ll be of no use anymore.”_

 _“Fine. Get this thing out of my sight,”_ the Russian spat to someone out of view before leaving the video’s frame. He continued speaking offscreen. _“Clean the wound, and make sure he eats and has plenty of fluids during recovery. When he comes back to himself, show him incontrovertible proof of his precious Captain’s demise.”_

There was a round of _“Yes, sirs”_ and _“Hail, HYDRAs,”_ and then Bucky’s blank, pale face disappeared from the screen as the gurney was wheeled away by two grim-faced men in dark clothing with tentacled skulls on their lapels.

 _“I’m excited to see the results of the surgery on the serum I injected him with last year,”_ Zola did indeed look and sound excited as the camera turned to him. He was speaking to the Russian, the taller man’s back to the camera. _“The body’s androgens interfere with its optimal performance, and if they don’t decrease enough with the removal of his testicles, I may have to remove the adrenal cortex as well- ”_

Whoever had subtitled the videos had left the _e_ out of _cortex._ Such a strange thing to jolt Steve from his emotional stupor, but it did. He was frighteningly angry again. He wanted Zola, his flesh-and-blood body, not the bank of computers he’d made his final resting place. He wanted to feel the tiny man’s teeth crack under his fist. He hoped that Zola’s computerized consciousness that had been blown to smithereens right before S.H.I.E.L.D.’s fall had been capable of feeling pain, or at least the terror of his impending death.

And Tony thought he didn’t have a dark side.

 _“I don’t care, Dr. Zola,”_ the Russian interrupted bluntly. _“I only care about my own work. You prepare his body, I will prepare his mind.”_

_“Of course, Mr. M. Let us each focus on our tasks, and only come together when they inevitably overlap.”_

Zola spoke smoothly, with a simpering smile. Steve supposed that years of dealing with an egomaniac like Johann Schmidt had made him adept at eating crow with nary a blow to his ego. When the newly entitled Mr. M grunted brusquely and turned towards the camera, Zola made a sour face at his back.

 _“Are you still filming?”_ Mr. M snarled at the camera, pulling his hat low on his face. The footage was too dark and choppy for Steve to get a good look at him, they’d have to go back and amplify him later. _“Turn that off, now!”_

The camera jostled and the video screen turned to static. Steve made no move to end it, as the progress bar still indicated more to come. Sure enough, the static quickly turned to an even worse quality shot from an ancient surveillance camera. It was mounted at the top corner of a small cell, pointed at the bed pushed against the back stone wall. The shadows of bars interspersed with the light behind them streamed across the figure lying on the bed. Bucky was dressed in a simple white hospital gown, curled on his side. It was some time after the events of the first video, because Bucky’s hair was noticeably shaggier and he looked shockingly gaunt. His eyes and stubbled cheeks were dark hollows in his pinched face. They hadn’t yet given him that replacement arm, which Steve took to mean that they hadn’t finished torturing him into submission. He felt a swell of pride in his friend’s strength.

The audio from this footage didn’t quite match up with the video. Steve watched Bucky startle and scramble weakly to his feet a few seconds before the he heard the clang of the cell door that had alerted Bucky. Two HYDRA guards entered, and one of them shoved Bucky’s armless left shoulder underneath the hanging sleeve of his gown, forcing him to sit heavily on the bed. The other guard held a tray with a bowl of lumpy, unappetizing-looking gruel and a mug of water. The back of the first guard’s head bobbed up and down, and a few seconds later his voice came out of the tablet’s tiny speakers.

“We are supposed to tell you to eat,” the man spoke English with a thick accent that Steve couldn’t place, helpfully subtitled as before. “But in truth, I hope you will not. I hope you will make me _persuade_ you.”

 _“Don’t make us get the feeding tube,”_ said the second guard in Russian. _“We know how much you hate the feeding tube.”_

He injected the end of his statement with false kindness, the Mutt to his partner’s Jeff. Bucky obviously didn’t buy it. He didn’t say anything, but he glared between the guards with undisguised hostility.

“He is going to be difficult,” said the first man. “Good.”

 _“You brought this on yourself,”_ said the second patronizingly. _“You could have easily avoided this, had you complied.”_

Bucky looked up at him, then his lips moved.

_“Fuck you.”_

Bucky spoke quietly in Russian. He’d always been good with languages, Steve remembered. He picked them up quickly, whether in school, the streets, or the trenches. Unlike Steve, who often struggled to form cohesive sentences in his native tongue.

“Get the tube, Stas.”

The second man placed the tray on the foot of the bed and left the screen, the door clanking behind him. The first man crowded into Bucky’s space, grabbing his face in his left hand, his right holding Bucky seated down on the bed by his left shoulder. Bucky was either too starved to resist, or else he knew the gesture would be futile.

“I do not understand why you will not eat,” the guard mused. “They took away your manhood to make you stronger, as strange as that is. Why do you insist on making yourself weak?”

Bucky stared up at him, and for a brief moment Steve saw his resolve falter. His eyes glazed over, then hardened once more. The man stroked his sunken cheek with the pad of his thumb, and Bucky’s eyes followed the movement like a wary animal.

“Perhaps you wish to die? Is that it? I cannot say that I blame you, I would rather die than live as you now are. But you cannot die, because it is the will of HYDRA that you live. So you will live. You will live and you will serve, and only through that will you find the fulfillment you now lack. Hail HYDRA.”

A faint sneer curled Bucky’s lip.

_“You- you really love hearing your own lips flap, don’t you?”_

Steve wondered if Bucky was only allowed to speak in Russian now, and how much pain that lesson had cost him.

The man’s hand pulled away from Bucky’s cheek, then returned, slapping it with brutal force. Bucky was already falling supine on the bed when the delayed sound of flesh striking flesh crackled out of the speakers. The man sprang after Bucky, straddling his hips and holding him down on the bed by right arm and left shoulder. Foreboding twisted in Steve’s chest as the tray clattered to the stone floor, spilling its contents.

_“Feró!”_

Stas had returned. The good cop. Maybe this was all a part of their routine. Steve let out an empty plea that it was to the God he’d stopped believing in before he went in the ice. Probably preceding that, back before the serum, when he’d watched them put his mother in the ground-

_“What are you doing?”_

The cell door opened and closed off-camera, and Stas rushed into view holding the promised feeding tube.

“The prisoner needs to be reminded of his place,” Feró said icily, thrusting his crotch against Bucky in unmistakable threat, and Bucky’s eyes widened. “I will be only too happy to help.”

_“You can’t be serious! I didn’t think you were a- a- ”_

“Of course I am not,” Feró cut off whatever slur Stas had choked on. “But this is not really a man, is it? Everyone says _he_ when they speak of HYDRA’s troublesome new acquisition, even myself, but that is not correct. This is a thing. An _it._ An it to be used in the service of HYDRA.”

Bucky hadn’t struggled before, but he did now, feebly, against the greater strength of the man on top of him.

“And HYDRA wishes to be serviced _now.”_

Steve thought he would be sick again, the glassful of water churning in his stomach. He focused on Natasha’s small hand, steady on his arm, unwavering in her commitment. His nausea faded.

On the screen, Feró was unbuttoning his fly, maddeningly slow. He’d had to release Bucky’s arm to do it, and Bucky’s right hand curled into a fist, beating at the other man’s torso as best he could. Bucky was taller than Feró, probably tougher in his prime, but he was so emaciated now that his blows had little effect.

“Hold him down for me Stas- no, wait! Hand me that bowl, first.”

Stas hesitated, but obeyed. He picked the bowl off the floor, a small amount of slimy gruel still visible in the bottom of it, and handed it to Feró, who placed it beside his leg. Then he moved to the head of the bed, looped the feeding tube over his shoulder, and held Bucky’s arm and shoulder against the mattress. Bucky made a noise of hopeless frustration as he struggled against both men, and Steve made himself numb. He had to, because he had to keep watching. He had to be there for Bucky through this, as ridiculous as that was. He also didn’t want to break Natasha’s tablet.

 _“Zola won’t like this,”_ Stas warned ominously.

“Mr. M will,” Feró countered. “He has been suggesting something like this for months, but that pansy German doctor would not agree to it. But Zola is travelling abroad, he will never know.”

He pulled his hardening cock out through his fly, reached down for the bowl, and slicked himself up with the gruel. He pushed the end of Bucky’s gown up over his hips, revealing the hairless ruin of his groin; soft and small and empty. Bucky’s face darkened with shame when Feró snickered.

“See. Not a man. Not a woman. Nothing.”

He reached down and fondled Bucky’s limp cock, pulling at the shrunken flap of skin behind it.

 _“Still too close to a man for my tastes,”_ Stas muttered in disgust.

“You _could_ be something, though,” Feró’s voice crooned to Bucky, ignoring his compatriot. “You could be a great asset to HYDRA. Make your pathetic, meaningless existence worthwhile.”

He stroked Bucky’s cock, smearing it with the gruel. It didn’t respond. The flush in Bucky’s cheeks spread down his throat to the hairless peek of his chest that could be seen under the V-neck hospital gown.

“I will not debase you here,” Feró promised solemnly. “I will not use you like this, but only _if._ _If_ you say the words.”

He leaned over Bucky, humping his straining cock against Bucky’s soft one. His face hovered over Bucky’s, and Steve detachedly studied Feró’s blurry profile. He couldn’t determine the man’s age, but he could make out the dark mustache and pointed goatee on his face. He wondered if they could figure out who he was- or had been. He wanted him to still be alive. He wanted to be the one to kill him.

“I only need to hear you say it. Say it. ‘Hail HYDRA.’”

Bucky’s jaw quavered, and Steve wanted him both to say it and not say it, not knowing which option was worse for Bucky.

Bucky spat in Feró’s face. Feró laughed spitefully.

“So be it.”

The footage was still dark and blurry, but not nearly enough to obscure the action as Feró shoved himself inside Bucky with no warning or preparation. Bucky screamed and flailed, but the other men held him down easily.

 _“You should have said it,”_ Stas said quietly at his head, his tone accusatory. Bucky’s body was shaking from Feró pounding inside him, and it wasn’t clear if he’d heard. _“And you should have been eating all this time. If you’d been eating, you’d be strong enough to fight him off.”_

Bucky had stopped screaming after the first few thrusts. His eyes stared, unseeing, over the head of the man raping him. The squeaking sound of bedsprings and Feró’s heavy breathing filled the room, the audio delay making the scene into even more of a surreal nightmare to watch.

“Oh,” Feró panted, hands grabbing Bucky’s exposed sides, fingers digging bruisingly into his flesh. “Oh, where is your defiance now, hmm? Where are your petulant words, where is your stubborn rebellion? Tell me again how your Captain is still alive and coming to save you, no matter how much evidence we provide to the contrary- ”

Feró’s face twisted, ugly with orgasm, and Bucky shuddered underneath him as he came. For a brief moment Steve felt like he was falling into a dark pit, but then he felt Natasha’s hand, warm on his skin, and the world came rushing back.

Feró pulled himself out of Bucky, wiping his cock on Bucky’s gown before stuffing himself back into his pants and re-buttoning his fly. The rest of the footage involved the two men shoving the feeding tube into Bucky’s mouth and depositing the contents of the attached bag down his throat. Bucky barely reacted to the violation. He was somewhere far away. Feró and Stas cleaned up their mess and left, the door slamming behind them.

The video went on for what felt like an interminably long time after that, though it was probably only a minute or two. Bucky just lay there, his only movement the rise and fall of his chest as he quietly breathed. His eyes continued to stare up at the ceiling, as if looking beyond it, hardly blinking. Finally, thankfully, the screen cut to black. More white text faded in. STAY TUNED FOR PART 2!

The video ended, and a circular arrow appeared. _Do you want to replay this video?_

“Steve?” Natasha asked softly, her hand moving for the first time, clutching gently at Steve’s forearm. “Hey, look at me.”

Steve did. The effort of moving his head towards her was monumental, but he did. Nat looked at him, eyes crinkled with sympathy.

“Are you okay?”

It was Steve who asked Natasha first. He was still numb, and he didn’t want to think about himself, or Bucky, so he honed in on Nat. She tilted her head at him, incredulous.

“Am _I_ okay? Steve- ”

“Yeah,” he insisted obstinately. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“No,” he admitted, because the idea of lying seemed a Sisyphean endeavor. “I’m not. But I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

_Or ever._

Because it _was_ his fault. It was, and how could he hope to ever get Bucky- _his_ Bucky- back?

“Fair enough,” she said, then lapsed into a silence that stretched unbearably for several minutes.

“You know it’s not your fault,” she said eventually. “Right?”

“There’s another video,” he remembered suddenly, brushing her off. “I have to watch the second one.”

He poked at the tablet’s screen and went back to his inbox, wondering if there would be yet another message, a third horrible video waiting for him. There wasn’t. Just the already opened, unwatched second video.

“Are you kidding me?”

Nat stood fluidly and snatched the tablet from his desk. Steve resisted the urge to wrest it from her hand.

“What are you doing? I- I have to watch the next- ”

“No,” she said firmly, reminding him of Peggy all over again. “Absolutely not. You need to eat something, and then we have a team meeting and a training session in less than an hour before Sam and Wanda leave tonight.”

For Vienna, he remembered. Maybe to find Bucky. To find what was left of Bucky. _God, please let there be something left of him-_

He should go with them. He should, but he didn’t want to. He couldn’t face Bucky, not after this. Not now that he knew the true horrible extent of how he had failed his best, loyal friend. He was ashamed when anger stabbed through his numbness. Anger at Bucky, at his misplaced faith and devotion. In that moment, Steve felt himself on the same level as those men- those _rapists-_ who had blamed Bucky for what was not his fault.

“Steve?”

“I have to watch it,” he said mulishly. “I have to see.”

“Later,” she said. “We’ll watch it later. Tomorrow.”

“No.”

He couldn’t wait that long. He had to see, had to know.

“Yes. This is _my_ tablet. You broke your computer.”

“Fine,” he growled. “I’ll just get another one from Tony.”

“Okay, then get another one from Tony.”

She knew he wouldn’t. That would require explanations, and enduring the eccentric genius’ teasing, and he couldn’t deal with that right now. He couldn’t pretend everything was fine, as he’d been pretending for so long, when everything wasn’t fine, hadn’t been fine, and would never be fine again.

“Tomorrow,” Nat said gently, reading his face. “You and me. We’ll face it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” Steve agreed. He had no other option. “Okay.”

“Good,” she smiled a hollow smile. “Get something to eat. And, if you don’t want to talk to me, please talk to someone. Sam will listen, and understand, you know he will.”

“I know.”

He’d probably talk to Sam. Eventually. Maybe. Yet again heaping his baggage on a person stupid enough to call Steve a friend.

“We’ll find him, Steve,” Natasha promised. “I’ll find him myself if I have to. I recognize some of those men from the video, I’ll start pulling info right away.”

“Okay,” he repeated, his voice empty, but his heart swelling with gratitude. Nat was so good. She had suffered so much, yet she was still so _good._ She put him to shame. “Thanks.”

He felt his eyes well up and, to avoid looking at her face while blinking back tears, he glanced at the clock. Nearly 2. No way to get back on schedule now, but he could make do. He always did.

“Get something to eat, Steve. See you at 2:30 in the boardroom.”

She left, closing the door smoothly behind her. Steve stared after her. Nat and him, the de facto leaders of the Avengers. Even if he had no business leading anyone, ever.

After what he’d seen, what he now knew incontrovertibly, how was he supposed to run a team meeting in half-an-hour? How was he supposed to sleep tonight? He needed to watch that second video. He could eat crow for Stark as well as he’d seen Zola do it over seventy years ago. He could get a new computer, shut himself in his room, and see what other horrors HYDRA had subjected Bucky to before they even got around to making him the Winter Soldier. He could, he had to-

He was still living in the past, he realized. After all his efforts to bring himself into this brave new world, kicking and screaming against it as he was despite all outward evidence to the contrary, he felt like he was right back in 1945. When he’d thought Bucky dead, avenged with the Red Skull vanquished, and he’d known he was no good for Peggy, she deserved so much better than him. With startling clarity, he realized he’d been thinking of Bucky first and foremost as he crashed into the icy water. Bucky. The way his lips would purse and his eyes would narrow when Steve did something reckless. The way his entire face lit up when he laughed. The way Steve would never see any of that again, because of his last memory of Bucky, his face contorted with terror, screaming, as he fell from the train, grasping at the air, reaching in vain for Steve’s hand.

He didn’t know what that meant. He pushed it to the back of his mind. That hated compartmentalization he’d given Fury such a hard time about. He was such a hypocrite.

Too bad it had all been for nothing. Maybe if he’d managed to guide the plane elsewhere, saved himself, he’d have been able to save Bucky from the fate he’d been subjected to.

_You couldn’t have know. It’s not your fault._

Empty words.

He wouldn’t ask Tony for a new laptop. He couldn’t face both Stark _and_ the rest of the team today. He only had the energy for one or the other, and he had a responsibility as team leader. Nat would take the reins at the meeting, he knew she would, and he could lose himself enough in combat training so that he wouldn’t have to think about anything but the mission scenario. He was a good soldier, after all. So good at hiding, pretending, focusing on the mission. He’d been doing it for so long, maybe his whole life.

And he couldn’t watch it alone. The only reason he’d made it through the first video was because of Natasha. He needed her there, he admitted to himself, as much as he hated to need anyone. His stupid, stubborn pride, borne of being small, weak, and sick in a world that had little understanding of those conditions, and even littler sympathy. The whole world, except Bucky. He’d needed Bucky, too, even when he hadn’t known it.

His stomach clenched and his numbness ebbed even as he clung to it. He breathed deeply; in through his nose, out through his mouth.

The mission: Eat something. Compose himself for the meeting. Lead the training session. Brief Sam and Wanda with Nat. Eat again. Maybe fit in a late workout. And then, tomorrow-

But what if Sam and Wanda found Bucky before Steve watched the second video? What if there was something even worse- though he couldn’t imagine what that could be- on it? Who were the videos even from?

_Bucky, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, please come back to me!_

Deep breaths. Refocus on the mission at hand. The mission. _The mission._ **_The mission._**

He slipped on a pair of worn loafers, squared his shoulders, and went to get something to eat.


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

The Avengers had a team meeting once a week. It had been Sam’s idea, after hearing all the trouble the first group of Avengers had initially had with each other. A weekly gathering to catch up with teammates, laugh, and air grievances if need be. Steve acknowledged it was a good idea, and it had been great for morale, even if it sometimes made him uncomfortable to talk about himself in a group setting. Occupational hazard of having a therapist as one of your closest friends.

Steve was rarely the last to show up for any meeting, but today he was. The long table in the boardroom was already full, Rhodey and Vision sitting on the left, Sam and Wanda on the right, Nat waiting for him up at the head of the table. Tony would attend whenever he was there, which was less and less often after the shake-up with Ultron, so soon after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Tony spent most of his time in New York, dealing with the monetary and bureaucratic aspects of the Avengers, when he wasn’t putting his genius to work on some new invention for Stark Industries. Occasionally he’d teleconference in for a meeting, but that too was happening less and less often. Even for all the sidetracking that went on when Stark deigned to show up, Steve missed him. He also missed Clint, Bruce, and Thor.

“Hey, Cap, nice of you to join us.”

Sam’s light-hearted teasing snapped him out of his funk, and he looked at his friend, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s only 2:29, Wilson, give me a break.”

He’d tried to match Sam’s tone, but something in his face must have alerted Sam that something was wrong. Sam could always read him so well. Another occupational hazard of having a therapist friend. Still, Sam would never press him for information. Sam let Steve come to _him,_ and Steve was so grateful for that. Thus far, he’d been successfully focusing on his current mission. He’d eaten a sandwich. He’d read a newspaper, a rarer and rarer commodity in these times, and one that Sam sometimes teased him about, but a comforting pastime nonetheless. And he hadn’t dwelled on those videos, he hadn’t, just the briefest flash of anger or sorrow before he pushed it away-

_Bucky’s eyes in that video, as blank as they’d been when he’d fought him on the streets of D.C., staring, staring, staring-_

The memory hit him with screaming force, and though he didn’t falter in step or expression, he still saw Wanda’s head jerk momentarily in his direction. He smiled at her, silently begging her not to say anything. She didn’t, just gave him a faltering smile in return.

Wanda had explained the telepathic aspect of her powers to them all at one of their earliest team meetings. Yes, she could “read minds” as Sam had put it, but that was not as simple as most of them were probably thinking, and, no, she wasn’t doing it at all times. She had to really focus to pick up more than a word or an image, and she would never betray their trust like that. Not after they’d accepted her apologies and welcomed her into the Avengers when she had nowhere else to go. This was her home, her purpose, and her family, now that Sokovia was in shambles and her brother killed while helping the Avengers defeat Ultron.

“I can, however,” she’d warned them, all wide eyes and thick accent “Pick up flashes of emotion or thought if they are strong enough. But I will never do this to any of you on purpose, and if it happens by accident I will not tell anyone, I promise.”

She’d been as good as her word so far, and Steve saw no reason to doubt her now. He’d bonded with her, in the wake of Pietro’s death and Clint’s retirement. She was damaged, suffering, but her heart was good and she was determined to make amends for her mistakes. He was glad to count her an ally, and not only because of her immense power.

“Let’s call this meeting to order,” Natasha said when Steve took his seat beside her. “We’ll start with Sam.”

They always started with Sam. It had been his idea to do this, after all.

“Well, I got a lead on that little ant-dude who totally did _not_ beat me when he tried to infiltrate this facility, no matter what certain _traitors- ”_ Sam glared at Vision, “-have said to the contrary, despite promising me that they wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I have given my apologies for this,” Vision told him, his forehead crinkling. “I merely informed Captain Rogers that a new, technology-powered human had entered the facility, disabled your flight suit, and stolen a- ”

“How is that not telling? I mean, I know you’re a robot, but- ”

“Actually, I am not a robot, I am a- ”

“Guys!”

Sam and Vision looked at Natasha.

“We’ve already been over this, can we move on?”

“Yeah, right, sure,” Sam muttered, but it was good-humored. “Anyway, dude’s name is Scott Lang. I’m in contact with one of his close friends. If it’s okay with you all, I’d like to make a move, reach out to him.”

“We’ll have to run it by Tony, too,” Nat said.

“Of course.”

Steve let the conversation wash over him, getting just enough to remember if he needed to later. He listened to Rhodey talk about how worried he was about Tony, Wanda gush about how excited she was to go on a mission with Sam, and how Vision was making an honest effort to use doors instead of the more direct route of walking through walls. Natasha offered up a sweet story of a phone call with Clint, Laura, Lila, Coop, and baby Nathaniel. Then it was Steve’s turn.

“Um,” he should have prepared better for this. “I, uh, got frustrated with my computer again and, well, uh, if you sent me any emails this afternoon, you’ll have to wait until tomorrow for me to answer them.”

“Maybe if you’d just let me set up the email on your phone, grandpa- ” Sam began, but a look from Nat shut him down.

“Yeah, so, sorry about that,” Steve finished weakly, looking at his hands. There was no trace of the tiny wounds he’d inflicted on his palms earlier.

He was suddenly glad Tony wasn’t here. A look from Natasha, no matter how murderous, would never have slowed Tony down. He loved and hated that about his friend. A little like Bucky, now that he thought about it. Or, how Bucky had been-

_Oh God, Bucky, what else did they do to you?_

Wanda glanced at him carefully once more.

When the meeting was finally adjourned, they went to the training room. This went better than the meeting, as he’d known it would. Calling out orders and positions, throwing himself and his shield in between his friends and teammates, this was what he did best, and he lost himself in it.

“War Machine,” only codenames in the training room, like in the field, “give me a lift!”

Rhodey picked him up underneath the armpits, firing his shoulder cannon as Steve used his shield for cover from the holographic bullets, and threw Steve at a turret.

They blasted the hell out of the training room simulations, grinning and high-fiving when they were finished, and Steve let himself be swept up in it.

After a quick shower, where he resisted the urge to jerk himself off like he usually did after combat, Steve ate an energy bar- disgusting but efficient- and made his way back to the boardroom to meet with Nat, Sam, and Wanda.

_You should be going with them._

No, they’d been over this. It was just a thin lead. Steve shouldn’t be leaving his leadership duties for such a thin lead. Sam and Wanda could handle it just fine, and if Bucky was really there they’d call Steve immediately.

_Excuses, you coward._

The briefing was simple. Sam and Wanda were meeting with Chastity McBryde, formerly of S.H.I.E.L.D., now an air ambulance pilot in Austria. She’d seen some hospital security footage of a man who bore a striking resemblance to the Winter Soldier, and she’d contacted Sam Wilson of the Avengers because she’d heard that he was looking for information about the HYDRA operative. If the intel panned out, Sam and Wanda were to contact the rest of the Avengers before making a move.

Steve felt his heart lurch at hearing Bucky referred to as a _HYDRA operative,_ but he tried not to let it show. Only Wanda noticed.

Before the Falcon and the Scarlet Witch boarded their Quinjet, Wanda pulled Steve aside. Sam and Natasha had already left the boardroom.

“Are you alright?”

Steve looked down at the young Roma woman, barely more than a girl, imbued with such a burden of power and knowledge.

“No,” he still didn’t feel like lying. “But I need you to do this mission for me. If it’s a success, it might help me be alright. Or one step closer, anyway.”

“Then I will,” Wanda’s shoulders straightened. “I won’t fail you.”

“You haven’t yet.”

She beamed at him, positively radiating with his praise, and he found her joy infectious. If only momentarily.

“Tomorrow, Steve,” Nat said to him, standing at his side in the hangar as they watched the Quinjet takeoff. “Promise me you’ll wait until tomorrow.”

“I promise. _If_ you’re the one to get me a new laptop.”

“Deal,” she agreed easily, amusement in her voice.

“Thanks, Nat.”

After Sam and Wanda’s departure, Steve ate, then spent nearly two hours lifting weights with Rhodey and then pummeling the heavy bag suspended from the gym’s ceiling by himself. He’d hit the bag until he was too exhausted to think about Bucky teaching him to box in Goldie’s Gym, right after they’d heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor-

He’d been teaching Bucky at the time, during an art class. Bucky was usually good at everything he attempted, and he’d been frustrated that his brush strokes were too heavy. Steve had held his wrist lightly, guiding his friend’s larger hand. Bucky had almost been satisfied with the result, when a boy had rushed into the room.

“The Japs attacked us in Hawaii! We’re at war!”

_-(and how he wished he’d had the knowledge, and the courage, to denounce that slur then. Not until he’d met Morita, seen the way that word caused his brave friend to flinch and look at the ground, had he started telling people not to use it)-_

“I don’t know how to fight, Buck,” that had been Steve’s first reaction to the news as he looked to Bucky, eyes wide. “I need to know how to fight. Really fight.”

“I’ll teach you,” Bucky assured him, his confidence palpable now that it was Steve who needed his help and not the other way around. “I shoulda shown you a long time ago, but I thought that would encourage you to be even stupider.”

“I don’t need _your_ help for that, you jerk.”

“No, I guess you don’t- ”

Would he ever see that confidence, that knowing smirk, on Bucky’s face again?

When he finally called it a night around 10, he was dripping with sweat, his thin T-shirt transparent, but his brain was too wiped to think of anything but stumbling into the shower and then into his bed.

Steve had never had the sweetest of dreams after he’d woken from the ice, but they’d never been this awful before. Bucky’s screams filled his mind as Bucky fell, was tortured, mutilated, and raped, over and over again, until the Winter Soldier stood before Steve, quiet and accusatory. _Your fault,_ he said without words. _This is your fault._ **_I_ ** _am your fault._ Steve had no arguments, and he woke the next morning to the screech of his alarm, feeling as exhausted as he had when he’d fallen asleep the night before.

*

“Here,” Nat shoved an unboxed laptop at Steve when he answered her knock on his door around 8 am. He’d already been up for three hours, brooding and pacing.  “Don’t say I never did anything for you.”

The computer was the same as his last. MacBook Air 2015, 13.3” screen. He’d picked it out with Tony’s help, not really caring about all the extra features Tony had seemed so excited about. He’d needed a computer, and he enjoyed using the internet, but beyond that he didn’t care about _data_ or _bandwidth_ or anything like that. Did the thing work like he needed it to? Great, sold.

“Tony set it all up for you.”

Natasha came into the room and sat in the chair she’d been in the day before.

“Thanks,” he sat the computer on his desk and opened it. “Any news from Vienna?”

“Sam and Wanda made contact with McBryde upon arrival. They reviewed her surveillance footage. Sam is 90% sure it’s Barnes. They’re setting up an investigation to see if he’s still in the area.”

“Good,” Steve’s heart pounded in his chest as he took a seat. “Great.”

He understood why Sam hadn’t contacted him first, but it still stung a little. Or maybe he had? Maybe he’d sent an email. That made sense, they wouldn’t bother with verbal communications unless it was an emergency.

Steve’s email account was a few messages fuller and there was indeed one from Sam, simply entitled _Vienna Report_. There was also one from Tony, _Enjoy the new MacBook, but stop smashing my shit or I’ll have to start calling you Hulk v.2,_ and another from the false _Natalia Romanova._ _Hey Cap,_ the subject line read, _Why the radio silence? Don’t you like my videos?_

“Whatever you want Steve,” Natasha reminded him. “I’m here for you.”

She didn’t touch him this time, and he didn’t ask her to. He wasn’t sure if he wanted it or not. He nodded stiffly, not looking at her, but feeling her eyes on him as he reopened the second email and clicked the video before he could think much harder about it. He was going to watch it. He’d always been going to watch it. He brought it to fullscreen in the instant it took to load.

The time bar at the bottom was shorter than the first, and there was no title card this time. The video opened in the same medical facility as the first, and Steve instantly recognized Zola and Mr. M with their backs to the camera, flanked by four HYDRA goons. Bucky stood in front of them, naked, back unnaturally straight as his empty eyes remained fixed on the men in front of him. Steve felt a twinge of short-lived relief at how much healthier Bucky looked than he had in the previous surveillance from his cell. Bucky’s face was still lean, but not gaunt, and his body was ripped with muscle, still hairless except for his stubble and the even longer hair on his head. His one arm was held stiffly behind his back, and Steve respectfully focused on the stub of his left arm instead of looking between his legs. There were visible scars along the stump, and even farther up the shoulder, and Steve wondered if they’d begun experimenting with the metal prosthesis yet.

Zola and Mr. M had been speaking quietly in their respective languages, the subtitles lacking until Zola raised his voice slightly.

 _“My part is completed, Mr. M,”_ Zola said smugly. _“Removing the testicles and both adrenal glands has increased the subject’s sensitivity to the serum beyond even my expectations. Mr. Barnes here is at the height of strength and stamina, along with an enhanced ability to heal himself. He could become HYDRA’s ultimate killing machine, if only we could employ adequate mental controls.”_

 _“I must admit that he has provided me with an intriguing challenge,”_ Mr. M replied smoothly, unable to hide his underlying frustration. _“Such a willful wretch is rare to find. But I have an idea for how to break him once and for all.”_

_“Yes, you told me as much in your letter. So what it is?”_

Mr. M turned to Zola, his profile to the camera. His lips twisted into a sneer.

_“Are you certain you have the stomach for it, Doctor?”_

_“Oh, get on with it, M,”_ Zola did not turn to the Russian, but continued to study Bucky in front of him. _“I have seen all your workings, and even I will concede that you have made great progress on him. Look how he stands there as you commanded. What other tortures can you have for him? Will you put the electricity to his brain again?”_

 _“Yes, but not at first,”_ Mr. M turned from Zola to look at Bucky as well. _“First he must accept that his Captain is not coming for him. Only then can we wipe him completely.”_

_“It has been over a year! And you have shown him the newsreels, how the Americans still grieve. The statue of Steve Rogers and his Howling Commandos erected in the heart of New York City. What else can you do to convince him?”_

_“This.”_

Mr. M turned to one of the guards and whispered in his ear. The man nodded brusquely and left the room. Mr. M motioned for Zola and the remaining guards to stand farther back. The camera followed their progress, before Mr. M beckoned it to join them, the action jolting until the camera operator repositioned, the screen now showing only Bucky. Bucky never moved.

There were a few minutes where nothing happened. The quiet breathing of the men could be heard, the only movement the slight tremor of the camera operator’s hands, but just several minutes of Bucky standing stock-still in the center of the med facility. Steve couldn’t help but glance between his legs briefly, feeling horrible but overwhelmingly curious. The view was the same. Still hairless, shrunken cock hanging over nothing. Steve shuddered.

When the HYDRA guard returned, Steve sat up straighter in his chair, leaning closer to the screen. He was probably blocking Nat’s view, but she didn’t object. The guard wasn’t alone. He had brought with him a man dressed in an exact replica of Steve’s original Captain America uniform, minus the mask. Not only that, but the imposter looked impossibly like Steve, post-serum. Same square jaw, same nose, same blond hair. Bucky didn’t even glance at him.

 _“Soldier,”_ Mr. M barked from the side of the camera, unseen. _“Lie down in the gurney. In ten seconds you will wake up.”_

Bucky’s face twitched when he looked over at Mr. M, but he obeyed. Once Bucky had walked over to the gurney and settled himself in it, the fake Steve looked in Mr. M’s direction. He must have received a nonverbal cue from the sadistic Russian, because he promptly rushed to Bucky’s side, his face contorted with concern.

“Bucky,” he spoke in perfect English, sounding so much like Steve. “Oh my God, Bucky!”

Bucky shuddered on the gurney, momentarily fighting against unseen restraints in his mind until recognition dawned on his features.

 _“Степан- ”_ Bucky shook his head violently. “I mean, S-steve?”

He smiled weakly at first, like he had when the real Steve had rescued him from Zola’s lab in Austria. Then, he looked down at himself in horrified realization, twisting his body to hide the mutilation between his legs as his face darkened.

“Steve, fuck, God, don’t- don’t look at me, man.”

“None of that now, Bucky,” the false Steve gently helped Bucky sit up on the gurney. “I’m here to save you. We’re going home.”

Bucky looked up at him, his expression torn between aching hope and terrible suspicion. He gulped, seemingly coming to a decision.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“O-okay,” Bucky nodded, swinging his legs over the gurney as he looked at the man pretending to be Steve. “Okay, I just- I just have one question.”

“What’s that, Buck?”

“Hail, HYDRA,” Bucky’s tone made it clear that he had nothing but contempt for the words he was saying.

“Hail, HYDRA,” the false Steve responded automatically, his training too ingrained. His neck made a sharp cracking noise when Bucky snapped it one-handed.

 _“You’ll have to do better than that, you- ”_ Bucky said in Russian as he rose from the gurney, swaying. He didn’t look at the body by his feet, only beyond the camera at Mr. M and Zola.

Mr. M spoke a few unsubtitled words in Russian, and Bucky’s back went straight again, eyes blanking as he stilled.

 _“Was that it?”_ Zola’s voice mocked. _“I’ve seen the tapes of your previous attempts at ‘Rescue by Captain America’. This went about as well as the others, didn’t it?”_

 _“I’m not finished yet,”_ Mr. M answered. _“And there are tapes you_ **_haven’t_ ** _seen, Dr. Zola.”_

The camera panned slightly to the left of Bucky. Steve stiffened again. The HYDRA guards from the previous video, Feró and Stas, stood about ten feet behind Bucky. Another man stood between them, this one small and spindly with a shock of blond hair. Steve remembered when he’d looked like that. He’d been so thankful after the serum, when he never had to see that reflection again.

 _“Like we discussed,”_ Mr. M’s voice made Feró and Stas stand up at attention. _“And you will not be punished for your earlier, unauthorized, indiscretion.”_

Stas gulped and nodded, glancing accusingly at Feró, who looked utterly terrified. Steve was glad for it.

 _“Soldier,”_ Mr. M’s voice addressed Bucky. _“In ten seconds you will wake up.”_

This time, Mr. M began a countdown of the seconds. At _seven,_ Stas turned to the small Steve doppelgänger and slapped him hard across the face. The skinny man fell to the ground instantly, and the other men continued to rain blows and kicks down upon him as he cried out for help. When Mr. M reached _one,_ Bucky trembled, coming back to himself and looking toward the source of the commotion.

“Steve- ” Bucky breathed, barely discernible over the speakers, but still subtitled.

“Help! Bucky, help me!”

Bucky sprang towards the two men beating the other, and Steve felt a chill run down his spine.

 _“No, wait! Mercy- !”_ Stas cried out before Bucky put his only hand right through his chest.

“You said- ” Feró began to run toward the camera, and Mr. M. “You promised!”

Bucky grabbed him by the back of his collar, slamming his body to the stone floor with a wet, crunching noise. Feró, twitched, stilled, and never got back up. Steve was glad.

Bucky crouched by the new fake Steve, breathing heavily, bloody and feral.

“Are you okay, Stevie?”

“Y-yeah,” the small man sat up, wincing, covered in darkening bruises, and clearly terrified. “Yeah, thank you.”

“Yeah, you’re okay now,” there was a shadow of that confidence Steve remembered as Bucky took Steve into his only arm, covering him with Stas’ blood. The gesture was surprisingly intimate. “I’ve got you.”

“You do,” the fake Steve whispered his script, looking up into Bucky’s eyes. “You always do- ”

Steve was never sure which of them initiated the kiss, but he saw how passionately Bucky kissed the man pretending to be him. He reeled from the screen, shoulder blades pressing into the back of his chair. He was horrified, but not at the kiss itself. No, the kiss seemed _right_ somehow, in a way that he couldn’t explain. What was horrible was that it wasn’t Steve that Bucky was kissing.

 _“Oh,”_ Zola’s voice came from beside the camera. _“I had no idea- ”_

 _“I only discovered it recently myself,”_ Mr. M sounded proud. _“It is amazing what secrets the mind can divulge, when one applies the proper pressure. Useful, no?”_

 _“Very,”_ Zola agreed, with a hint of respect for his rival. _“But what will you do with it?”_

 _“Wait and see,”_ Mr. M teased, before raising his voice in Bucky’s direction. _“Soldier! In ten seconds, you will kill him for HYDRA.”_

The false Steve wrenched himself from Bucky’s lips, looking wildly in Mr. M’s direction. Mr. M didn’t do a countdown this time.

_“Wait, what? No!”_

Bucky looked down at the smaller man, confused.

“What did you say, Steve?”

The fake Steve tried to push himself out of Bucky’s embrace. Bucky’s arm went slack, and the other man tumbled awkwardly to the ground.

“Steve? Hey, Steve! I- I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?”

The fake Steve scrambled crab-like away from him, gaping at Bucky in terror.

“Steve?”

_“Now, Soldier.”_

Bucky looked towards the camera in anguished confusion.

 _“No,”_ Bucky switched abruptly to Russian with his triggering. _“No, please.”_

_“Now!”_

Bucky rose to his feet fluidly, towering over the pitiful little man in front of him. Steve couldn’t see his face in the video, but Bucky’s shoulders were hunched.

_“Steve, run! They- they’re gonna make me- I can’t control it- ”_

_“Don’t,”_ Not-Steve pleaded, not to Bucky, but behind him, at Mr. M. _“Please!”_

_“Do it, Soldier!”_

Bucky leaned down. There was the sound of another neck snapping, and then Bucky howled with grief as the tiny body crumpled at his feet. He slumped over the corpse, cradling it, sweeping it up into his one, broad arm as he stood and turned to glare at Mr. M with weeping eyes. Another string of untranscribed Russian came from offscreen, and Bucky swayed, his face twitching before it blanked. He dropped the body and stepped over it without a second glance. He covered the distance between himself and the camera in a lumbering strut, standing directly in front of the lens, only his lower torso on display. Steve stared in numb horror at the sight, no distance or shadows to hide what had been done to his friend. There were scars, faint as they were, both on and below his shrunken cock.

 _“Look,”_ Mr. M spoke, a hand reaching out to stroke the flaccid shaft briefly. _“No reaction from that kiss whatsoever.”_

 _“Yes, well, I removed the dorsal nerve as you requested,”_ Zola sounded distracted, and alarmed. _“He- he’s very close, isn’t he?”_

 _“Just you wait,”_ Mr. M promised darkly, before addressing the camera operator. _“Back up a bit.”_

As the operator acquiesced, showing Bucky in his entirety with the HYDRA entourage standing before him, Mr. M commanded Bucky once more.

_“Wake up, Soldier.”_

The blank expression flitted off of Bucky’s face, and he staggered, blinking up at Mr. M.

_“What is your name, Soldier?”_

Bucky opened his mouth, then closed it, distressed confusion in his eyes.

_“Very good, Soldier. You have no name. Now, where is Steve Rogers?”_

“I- ” Bucky began in English, but shivered and quickly switched to Russian. _“I don’t know, but he’s coming for me. He’s coming to save me.”_

_“No, Soldier. No he’s not.”_

_“He- he’s not?”_ Bucky sounded half-convinced. _“But he’s Captain America, and he’s my- ”_

 _“No,”_ Mr. M interrupted. _“There is no Captain America. You made him up.”_

_“There is no Captain America?”_

_“There is no Captain America,”_ Mr. M insisted firmly.

 _“There is no Captain America,”_ Bucky finally agreed flatly, brow furrowed.

_“As for Steve Rogers, he is dead. You killed him.”_

Bucky’s eyes widened in distress.

_“No, I didn’t- I couldn’t- ”_

_“Look behind you, Soldier.”_

Bucky turned stiffly. The camera followed his gaze to the body of the small, false Steve. Someone had removed the first dead Captain America doppelgänger, as well as the bodies of Feró and Stas. Bucky’s breath hitched, and he made as if to rush to the body.

_“Stay where you are, Soldier!”_

Bucky did, back straightening, even as his fist clenched.

_“Steve Rogers is dead, and you killed him.”_

_“No,”_ Bucky growled stubbornly.

_“You did. Steve Rogers is dead, you killed him, and no one is coming to save you. Say it.”_

_“No,”_ Bucky said, resolve clearly weakening. _“I didn’t, I couldn’t.”_

_“You did. Say it.”_

Bucky looked back to Mr. M, shoulders slumping in defeat, eyes wide and pleading.

_“I did? I- I did- ”_

_“Louder, Soldier.”_

_“I killed him. I killed Steve Rogers,”_ Bucky’s voice broke and a tear ran down his cheek.

_“And what of Captain America?”_

_“Who is Captain America?”_ Bucky asked in genuine confusion. Another tear slipped down his other cheek.

_“No one. No one, very good Soldier. So, who is coming to save you?”_

_“No one.”_

Bucky said it quietly, so resigned that it made Steve’s heart break in a way the videos hadn’t made it break before.

 _“Very good,”_ Mr. M was so pleased and he spoke to Bucky as if he were instructing a toddler, or a dog. _“Very good, Soldier. No one is coming to save you, because there is nothing to save you from. You have been chosen as the Hand of HYDRA, and you are happy to be it.”_

 _“I am the Hand of HYDRA,”_ Bucky repeated, devoid of emotion. _“I am happy to be the Hand of HYDRA.”_

_“Get on the gurney, Soldier.”_

Bucky complied. The camera went after Mr. M and Zola as they followed Bucky. Two HYDRA guards rushed to strap Bucky down, applying electrodes to his temples.

 _“When I give the signal, wipe his mind fully,”_ Mr. M ordered. _“He’s ready.”_

 _“Are you certain?”_ Zola sounded nearly panicked. _“If you’re not certain, all our work will have been for nothing!”_

_“I am certain. If this did not work, nothing ever will. There is only one final test.”_

Mr. M bent over Bucky, his mouth directly by his ear. The shadows prevented Steve from getting a clear look at him.

_“I need you to say something, Soldier. Can you do that for me?”_

Bucky lay there, unmoving. He didn’t answer.

_“Hail, HYDRA. Can you say that for me, Soldier? Hail, HYDRA?”_

Steve’s breath caught in his throat.

 _“Hail, HYDRA,”_ Bucky said, bereft of substance or understanding.

 _“Very good,”_ Mr. M straightened, looking briefly at Zola in triumph. _“He’s ready. Wipe him.”_

Hands shoved a leather strap between Bucky’s teeth. There was a hum of electricity, and Bucky’s back arched off the gurney, his eyes widening as he screamed in pain. It went on and on and on. Steve didn’t realize he’d been shaking until he felt Nat’s gentle hand on his shoulder. In the video, the torture had finally stopped. Bucky lay in the gurney, panting, face blank as Mr. M caressed his cheek.

_“You are so good, Soldier. So good.”_

Bucky sighed, exhausted and content, leaning into the touch.

_“Stripped of all identity, we will rebuild him, won’t we Dr. Zola? Your prototype for an arm intrigues me, I cannot wait to see it in action.”_

_“Yes,”_ Zola’s voice was awed as he stared at Bucky. _“I can install it immediately if you wish.”_

 _“Tomorrow,”_ Mr. M continued to stroke Bucky’s cheek obscenely. _“Let our perfect Soldier rest tonight.”_

 _“Yes, of course,”_ Zola said haltingly. That was when the video cut to roaring static, so abruptly that both Steve and Nat jumped. The red bar indicated a little more to come, but the noise was nearly unbearable in the meantime.

When the static ended, Steve found himself face-to-face with Brock Rumlow. This video was in color, and Steve barely recognized Rumlow, his face burned and deformed as it was. He’d seen the reports of Rumlow’s survival, of his escape, and of his actions since then, but he hadn’t understood the extent of the man’s rage until he saw it in his eyes.

“Captain Rogers,” Rumlow spat. This was not subtitled. “I know I indicated that these were from HYDRA, but, hey, I lied. Fuck HYDRA. They’re from little old me.”

“From _us,”_ a high voice insisted from offscreen. Rumlow continued as if there had been no interruption.

“Have you enjoyed the show so far? I hope you have. It took me, and Sin, a lot of effort to dig these videos up.”

“Not to mention subtitle them.”

The same voice, full of unrestrained malice. It was Steve’s turn to feel Natasha tense as a pretty young woman dressed in a tight red leather catsuit entered the frame, throwing an arm around Rumlow’s neck as she settled herself in his lap, leering at the camera. Her pale cheeks were covered in freckles, and her short hair was a red to rival Nat’s. She waved at the camera.

“Hi, I’m Sin!”

“Sinthea Schmidt,” Rumlow supplied. “Daughter of Johann Schmidt.”

“But don’t hold that against me,” Sin smiled demurely. “My daddy was a _dick._ Me? I’m so much worse.”

She looked far too young to be the immediate daughter of the Red Skull. Then again, Steve knew better than most about judging anyone’s age at face value.

“We sifted through so much footage,” Rumlow continued. “You shoulda seen some of the shit that didn’t make the final cut. Christ, your pal was real queer for you, wasn’t he? Gross.”

“Gross,” Sin mimicked, giggling as she kicked her heels up off of Rumlow’s lap. “Good thing they cut that out of him, huh? Cut off his balls, cut up his dick, no more nasty desires for dudes.”

“The only question is, Cap,” Rumlow sneered over Sin’s laughter. “Did you share his feelings? That would make all of this so much more- _tragic,_ wouldn’t it?”

“Ew,” Sin’s lip curled.

“So, we’re gonna keep sending you videos,” Rumlow promised. “More and more videos, using that Ruskie bitch’s email, until you track us down. And when you do, we’re gonna kill you.”

“Kill you,” Sin echoed mockingly.

“Kill you, and anyone you bring with you,” Rumlow continued. “I’ll kill your boyfriend, too, but that might not be as much fun. There really ain’t nothing left of him to kill, is there?”

“Yeah, be seeing you real soon,” Sin grinned toothily, before reaching to switch the camera off. The video ended. _Do you want to replay this video?_ No, no, never, no-

“Steve?”

“Why do you think they shaved him everywhere but his head?” Steve blurted out the first question he thought of, chafing at its inappropriateness. “I mean, his hair was longer, his stubble was messy, and he still had eyebrows, but no other hair? What the hell?”

“Well,” Nat took the conversational non-sequitur in stride with a deep breath. “I imagine they put him in all sorts of tight gear. It makes it easier when there’s no body hair to interfere.”

“Oh,” Steve thought of his own costume, and had to agree with Nat’s assessment. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Steve,” Natasha’s tone switched from concern to business, and that put Steve more at ease. “Now we know- Rumlow and this _Sin.”_

“Do you know her?” Steve made the obvious leap.

“I know _of_ her, yes,” Nat answered carefully. “I’ve fought her before, although I didn’t know who she was at the time. I didn’t know she claims to be the Red Skull’s daughter.”

“We should look into that.”

“Yes, we should,” Nat agreed. “I’ve already looked into some of our friends from the videos as well. Would you like to hear what I found?”

“Of course.”

“Well, you know what became of Dr. Arnim Zola. I discovered that one Feró Bokori and one Nestor “Stas” Stanislavski disappeared from HYDRA’s records in 1945, and now we know why. As for Mr. M, from what I’ve gathered his real name was Mikhaylov, Marko Mikhaylov. Born in 1902, died in 2001.”

She paused, letting Steve wrap his mind around the fact that there was no one left to seek vengeance upon. No one but Rumlow and Sin.

“I knew him,” Nat blurted out suddenly. “Not Mikhaylov. I- I mean Barnes. Bucky. He was in the Red Room.”

Steve didn’t say anything, but he looked at Natasha. Her face was troubled, but strong. He welcomed the opportunity to take on some of _her_ pain, as opposed to the other way around. He opened his features, and she continued.

“I was a child, barely twelve. They, uh, they called him _Soldat._ Soldier. He didn’t say anything, but he showed me- he held my arm when I executed my first victim. Later, when I was a woman, they brought him back to spar with me. After I bested him, they took him away and I never saw him again.”

Steve said nothing. He had nothing he could say.

“I should have told you sooner, but I wanted to keep it to myself. It wasn’t relevant to any mission, so I didn’t say anything. I’m sorry.”

“No,” he reassured her. “Don’t be. You’re right, it was yours, and it wasn’t relevant. But thank you for telling me. It’s just one more piece of the puzzle, you know?”

“I’m worried that Sam and Wanda are walking into a trap,” Natasha cautioned him. “What if this is a set-up by Rumlow and Schmidt?”

In response, Steve pulled out the Avengers’ emergency communicator and dialed Sam’s frequency. There was a moment of heart-pounding silence, before Sam’s voice crackled on the other end.

“Hello? This is Falcon speaking. Over.”

“Falcon,” Steve said carefully, trying not to betray his anxiety. “Be advised, you and Scarlet Witch may be walking into a trap devised by our old pal Brock Rumlow and his accomplice, Sinthea Schmidt. Over.”

“10-4, Cap,” Sam responded easily. “No sign of Rumlow or Schmidt here as of yet. No sign of Barnes, either. Over.”

“Keep us advised, Falcon. Over.”

“Will do, Cap. Over.”

“That’s all we can do for now,” Nat told him lightly. As if he didn’t know that. “In the meantime- ”

“What?” Steve spoke a little too harshly.

“Have you had anything to eat this morning, Steve?”

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t want- ”

He glanced at the stain on the carpet from the night before, then back to Natasha. She nodded in understanding.

“You should eat something.”

“There’s a third email,” he said stubbornly. “And I’m going to watch it now.”

“Alright,” she didn’t fight him. “I’ll watch it with you, if that’s still okay.”

“Please,” Steve said simply, turning from her and opening the third email he now knew was from Rumlow. He clicked the video.

This one was an amalgamation of security tapes over the span of several years. Steve had seen some of them, also with Natasha, when he’d confronted Zola in his computer mainframe at Camp Lehigh. Bucky- no, the Winter Soldier- assassinating world leaders and free-thinkers. JFK. Howard and Maria Stark. Names he’d been able to desensitize himself to reading, but not to watching. The Winter Soldier killed with impunity as Steve was forced to watch his friend’s body commit actions he knew Bucky would have recoiled at.

“We’re gonna find him,” Rumlow taunted at the end of the video. “The Winter Soldier. We’re gonna find him and kill him. Be doing the world a favor, really. That would kinda make us the real heroes, wouldn’t it?”

The video stopped. It was nearly 11 am.

“Let’s get some breakfast, Steve,” Natasha’s tone brooked no argument. “Okay?”

“Okay.”

Steve let her guide him from his room toward the kitchen. He had too much to think about. Besides, he was hungry, and he needed to eat before shredding his mind in another workout session. He wanted to punch until he couldn’t think anymore.

He never wanted to think again.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

 

“They’re trying to draw you out,” Nat warned him, once she’d led him to the kitchen and watched as he made himself breakfast. “They admitted as much at the end of the second video, and I read them as telling the truth.”

Steve nodded his agreement. He hadn’t detected anything spurious about Rumlow and Sin’s motives, and he was glad that Nat hadn’t either. Natasha was leaps and bounds ahead of him when it came to interpreting other people. She had to be.

“You need to be careful. They’re erratic, desperate, and they really, really hate you.”

“Yeah, I gathered that much.”

His blood boiled, imagining them gathering the footage for the videos. Laughing at him, and his reaction to what he’d seen. Worse, laughing at Bucky. Laughing at Steve’s brave, noble friend who was worth more than both of them combined-

The knife he was using now bore the indents of his fingertips in its handle. He inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, getting himself under control.

“I’m gonna look into all of this, Steve, but I need you to promise me you won’t do anything hasty while I do.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him, friendly but uncompromising.

“Who, me?” Steve offered up the joke weakly. “When have I ever done anything hasty?”

He took a crunching bite of his toast, chewing. It was too dry.

“Steve, seriously.”

It hurt when he swallowed.

“Yes, I mean, no. I mean, I won’t. Do anything hasty. But- but you don’t have to- I understand this isn’t your thing, and it’s not an official mission or anything, and you don’t have to use up any more of your favors or- ”

A faint smile played across her lips, cutting him off as effectively as any verbal interruption. Nat knew him. She  _ knew _ him, his games and deflections. His stubborn pride, and how it choked him even when he was drowning inside himself.

“They used my email, Rogers, so it’s personal. Besides, I  _ like _ doing this, and I’m  _ good _ at it,” pride infused her voice, along with the joy of the hunt, and Steve remembered who he was talking to. “Please, let me help you.”

“Okay,” he knew when he was beaten. “Thanks, Nat.”

He finished eating, promised Nat he’d let her know if he got any more emails from her old account and headed down to the gym, but no matter how hard he hit, no matter how much sweat poured from his body, he couldn’t stop thinking.

He was far too familiar with the different ways Bucky screamed. The cries of combat versus the yells he’d let out on the Loop-O-Plane or the Thunderbolt on Coney Island, one scream tinged with determination, the other with laughter as he looked over at Steve to make sure his smaller friend was having as much fun as he was. That horrible, terrified, echoing scream, fading rapidly from Steve’s ears when he thought he’d lost Bucky forever off the side of the mountain. Now, new screams. The tortured, bellowing disbelief of having his balls cut off. The helplessly angry outcry when a rapist shoved his way inside of him. The deep, keening wail as electricity surged through his brain, wiping and rewiring. That anguished howl when he thought he’d been made to kill Steve-

_ -other screams, screams of pleasure from behind Bucky’s apartment door. High, breathy squeals from the lucky dame Bucky had brought home with him, and deep, grunting shouts from Bucky, and Steve shouldn’t listen outside the door, he shouldn’t, but he was intrigued, and aroused, and jealous, so jealous- _

Steve’s hand dropped to his side with the memory, the heavy bag swinging itself back and forth until it came to a standstill. Back then, he’d thought himself jealous of Bucky. Jealous of his big, strong, handsome friend and his prowess with the ladies. The thought that he’d been jealous of the  _ woman, _ of what she was sharing with Bucky, had never crossed his mind.

_ That would make all of this so much more-  _ **_tragic._ **

Rumlow’s jeering voice filled his head along with the memory of his face, his burnt, deformed lips pulled into a mocking smile. He was trying to mess with Steve’s head, that was all. As surely as HYDRA had messed with Bucky’s head seventy years ago, making him think he loved Steve as more than a friend or brother. Because he couldn’t have been  _ in _ love with Steve. He just couldn’t. Bucky liked  _ girls. _ Bucky had liked girls as long as Steve had known him, and the girls liked Bucky just as much.

_ Not that there’s anything wrong with a man liking other men. _

He was glad that he could think that so readily. He’d acclimated to the future well, as if he’d belonged here all along and not in the narrower-minded 1940’s, where women, and people of different races or even different, “undesirable” flavors of white had been blatantly discriminated against. Not that everything was perfect now, far from it, but he’d been criminally underselling his feelings when he’d told Sam that “things aren’t so bad,” back when he’d first met him jogging around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool-

_ “That was a test,” Sam had told him later, during one of their earlier, fruitless excursions after Bucky. “I needed to see if you were, you know, down with the whole Civil Rights Movement and all that jazz.” _

_ “That’s fair,” Steve had told him. “But, yeah. I was more than down. Never been a big fan of jazz, though.” _

_ “Ha, ha, jackass,” Sam had rolled his eyes and grinned- _

He didn’t want to be too self-congratulatory, however. He was still a product of his times, no matter how much he tried to keep an open mind. A poor, sick white man, but still a white man. In the early 40’s, he’d turned a blind eye to news of Japanese internment camps on the West Coast, so far removed from his Brooklyn bubble. During the war, he’d been stunned by Gabe Jones’ stories of discrimination in his academic studies, also unknown to his more privileged experiences. Maybe that was what was better about the future. Not that things were significantly better, but that people were more aware of the oppression around them.

Homosexuality, though, or any of the other different sexual identities he’d learned about on the ever-useful internet, that was something he hadn’t even considered to be a part of his life. The societal taboo had been so strong, it wasn’t talked about, beyond cruel playground jests. To his great shame, he could remember some of the things he and Bucky had said about “perverts” when they were young, lips curling in the same disgust as Rumlow and Sin’s on the video. But had Bucky been hiding from himself? Had Steve?

Absolutely not. There was nothing wrong with liking other men, and maybe Bucky had- or did still, hopefully _ - _ but Steve? Steve was straight. He always had been, always would be, and his difficulty with women was a combination of his early physicality and his ongoing personality defects, nothing else-

_ -“Oh, Bucky,” the girl was moaning on the other side of the door. “Bucky, Bucky, yes, harder!” Steve was adjusting himself in his pants, cock straining, and Bucky’s voice, a rumble of pleasure and confidence, “Yeah, doll, I got you. I got you, stay with me.” And why was that not him? Why couldn’t that be Steve? He should leave, he should, but he waited until he heard the girl cry out in rapture and then Bucky’s responding groan, and only then Steve fled. He’d go home, rub one out, thinking about what he’d overheard, and wishing- wishing- but wishing what?- _

Steve had been standing immobile for a few minutes, lost in thought. He struck the bag one last time, sent it violently swinging, then went to shower. He tried not to think as hot water rained down on him. The pressure was amazing, nothing but the best for Tony Stark’s friends. He thought of Howard. He thought of Bucky killing Howard, and his wife, who Steve had never met. No, not Bucky. The Winter Soldier. That blank creature HYDRA had created by vivisecting Bucky’s body and scrambling his brain until there was no more Bucky. Except, then he’d pulled Steve out of the river.  _ “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line,” _ Steve had reminded him, and the look of horror on the shell’s face had absolutely been Bucky realizing what damage his hands were doing to the man he’d protected his entire life. The man he might have loved-

Steve shook his head. He should tell Tony what he’d found about his parent’s death. He knew Tony didn’t have all the details, and he thought how maddening that must be for his friend. He should tell him-

_ What if he goes after Bucky? What if he hurts him? _

**_What if I have to justify my belief in HYDRA’s asset? What if I can’t?_ **

This time, Steve jerked himself off. There was little enjoyment, but he was wired, and he’d been incited by his memories of that girl’s noises- and not Bucky’s, not Bucky’s, that was ridiculous. He imagined his guilt and doubt draining from his body with his climax.

It almost worked.


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

Steve had already dressed and was toweling off his hair when the idea to visit Peggy struck him. It had been too long since his last visit, it was way past time. Coward that he was when it came to emotional interactions, he’d only seen Peggy twice in the three years since he’d woken from the ice. The first time was after he’d seen her in a video at that Smithsonian exhibit honoring him, the one he’d put off visiting for months because the whole thing had made him uncomfortable, but overwhelming curiosity had finally won. That had been over a year-and-a-half ago. Right before the end of S.H.I.E.L.D. Right before he’d discovered that Bucky had survived his fall seventy years prior, and-

_Not thinking about that._

He looked at the clock. 12:41. Not enough time to go today, unless he took a Quinjet, but he didn’t feel like flying. He felt like driving. He’d go tomorrow, as long as there wasn’t an Avengers related crisis to deal with. As long as Sam and Wanda’s Vienna trip remained uneventful. He’d take one of Stark’s less ostentatious cars, roll down the windows, find a SiriusXM station dedicated to one of the decades he’d missed- the 70’s sounded good, some James Brown, Rolling Stones, and Marvin Gaye- and cruise down the I-95. It would take nearly five hours, but that was worth it not to have to use the New Jersey Turnpike.

Because he had to get out of here. He almost wished that an Avengers-level situation _would_ arise, so he could throw himself into it, but this would be better than a potentially world-ending catastrophe. He couldn’t stop thinking entirely, but he could damn well think about something else besides Bucky in those videos. The way Bucky had kissed that false Steve, passionate but gentle, as if nothing else in the world mattered-

 _Not thinking about that._   

Steve thought instead about how much he hated that he’d waited two years to visit Peggy. He hadn’t even spoken to her on the phone, or sent her a letter or email. Seeing her face in the Smithsonian video had finally spurred him to action, and he’d gone to the retirement home in D.C. where she lived that same day. She’d remembered him that time, for the most part, her Alzheimer’s only flaring up at the end. One instant he’d been speaking with her, looking into her eyes and seeing the recognition, the next, those beautiful brown eyes had clouded over, narrowed with disbelief. She’d forgotten their entire conversation, it was as if she was seeing him for the first time again since 1945. She’d started to cry, and that had been Steve’s breaking point. He’d left soon after, once she was calmed, and she’d squeezed his hand goodbye.

 _“You could have landed that plane, you know,”_ she’d told him as he was walking away. Her voice hadn’t been accusatory, but he’d felt accused, and he froze with his back to her. _“Howard told me, right after. There was plenty of time. It’s like you_ **_wanted_ ** _to crash.”_

He hadn’t been able to look at her, and she’d had no follow-up, so he’d left. He’d shoved her words to the back of his mind, and then the shit had hit the fan with S.H.I.E.L.D., and he hadn’t been able to process the enormity of her words. He still hadn’t.

He didn’t want to. There was too much to process. About himself, about what he thought and felt. About how he’d _quit,_ rather than deal with- with what? Life without the war he’d fixated on for so long, the war he’d allowed himself to be experimented on and altered for? Life with Peggy, the first woman who’d shown him interest when he’d been small, and one he could actually imagine a life with? Or, was it life without Bucky he hadn’t been able to face?

_Not thinking about it!_

The second time Steve visited Peggy had been seven months after the first. He’d received a text from her daughter Sabine Jones-Thompson. _Doctors say Mom doesn’t have much time left, if you want to say goodbye._ He’d taken a jet to the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital immediately, but Peggy hadn’t recognized him at all. He’d sat awkwardly with Sabine for a few hours, until Peggy had stabilized.  

That was the first time Steve had met Sabine face-to-face. The two of them had exchanged information over email previously, in case this situation arose. Sabine had reached out to him first, sending him a respectfully curious email wondering if he could tell her anything he could remember about her mother and father. He’d responded with every little detail he had. That had made him smile, remembering the Peggy Carter he’d met in June of 1943, and Gabe Jones about five months later when he’d freed the 107th from the Red Skull’s base in Austria. To his knowledge, Peggy and Gabe had been barely more than acquaintances by the time Steve had taken his plunge into the ice. It gave him a measure of peace that they’d fallen in love and had a family together. Sadly, Gabe had died of heart complications nearly ten years before Steve had been thawed out, but knowing Peggy had lived, and loved, made him so grateful to Gabe for giving her everything Steve had known he couldn’t.

_And why is that, exactly?_

He did want love, a family, a regular life. He did- didn’t he?

 _It’s what you think you want. It’s what you’re_ **_supposed_ ** _to want. But you were never good at doing what you were supposed to do, were you? Even as a soldier, always the wise guy._

Steve knew that was why he and Bucky had gotten along so well. They’d complimented each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Bucky had projected a disarming devil-may-care aura to the world, but even as a child Steve had quickly seen through that. Between the two of them, Bucky had been the responsible one. He’d taken care of his younger siblings, taken care of Steve despite Steve’s insistence that he didn’t need it, and he’d had a strong sense of duty. Steve could count on one hand the number of fights Bucky had actually started; the list of fights he’d _ended_ was much longer.

No, Steve reflected, where Bucky had gotten into trouble had been his confidence. He’d known he was intelligent, athletic, and attractive, and that he could use those qualities to his advantage. Sometimes that had led to cockiness. Whereas Steve had always known when he was being reckless, and had dived in headfirst regardless, Bucky hadn’t always been cognizant of his own limitations. He’d wasted so much money on carnival games in their youth, convinced he’d be able to win something for a pretty girl he’d met on the boardwalk, rarely succeeding, and somehow not learning his lesson for the next time they were there. Sick and tortured, he’d still insisted on walking back to camp at Steve’s side after Captain America’s liberation of the HYDRA base, rather than riding on one of the requisitioned HYDRA tanks like many of the other wounded soldiers. On the train, he’d thought he’d be strong enough to wield Steve’s shield, saving Steve from the gunman but getting himself blown out the side of the train in the process. And then-

He was thinking about Bucky again. Always Bucky. He’d let him go, tried to move on, but Bucky was back, haunting him. His link to the past, though he was trying so hard to move forward. He had new friends, a new life, a _good_ life, if he could just move forward-

_-he was in the Barnes’s kitchen, staying the night with them while his mother worked a double shift, sitting on the floor with little Ruthie excitedly showing him the tiny dress she’d sewn for her ragdoll out of fabric scraps, and he was pretending to be interested while he waited for Bucky to get back from the drugstore errand he’d been sent on. Mrs. Barnes was standing at the counter, back to them, drying a bowl with a dishtowel, and singing quietly. “Make new friends, but keep the old”-_

“Those are silver, these are gold.”

Steve finished the song out loud, breathing it into the empty air of his room. Nat, Sam, Tony, Clint, Bruce, Thor, Wanda, Rhodey, and Vision, they were his silver. Peggy and Bucky, his gold. All good. All important. Just in different ways. And all those things he’d wanted, or thought he’d wanted, before the ice, he now knew them to be empty dreams. He accepted that. The Avengers were his friends _and_ family. He had a good life here, in this unexpected time and place.

Now all he had to do was get Bucky back.

It occurred to him for the first time that he’d been thinking about this all wrong. He hadn’t understood why Bucky, if he was still Bucky, would be running from him. Why wouldn’t he come find Steve, reach out to him? But after those videos, Steve realized why not. Bucky had lost so much, had been brutalized and altered beyond what Steve could imagine, and Bucky was _ashamed._ Not that he had anything to be ashamed of, but Steve knew Bucky wouldn’t see it that way. His confident friend, so sure of his capabilities, so driven to do what he thought was right, was out there, lost, floating, drowning, and he didn’t want Steve’s help because he was ashamed that he needed it. Steve could empathize. Bucky had never needed much help, and had been good at asking for it when he did. Now that his entire world was shattered, he had no reference for how to go about reaching out to Steve.

It had been something like that when Steve had shown up in Europe, post-serum. Bucky had scowled at him for weeks after their return to camp. Steve had thought it jealousy at first, but Bucky had told him what was bothering him, eventually. Once he’d moved beyond ranting about the sheer stupidity of Steve letting people inject him with an experimental serum, he’d confessed that he wasn’t sure what their dynamic was anymore. He was so happy that Steve was strong, healthy, and everything he’d ever wanted to be, but he didn’t know if Steve needed his friendship anymore.

Steve had been floored, but he supposed he should have thought of that himself. They’d established the roles of their relationship the day they’d met, Bucky soundly thrashing the three boys who’d decided that their “mouthy little twerp” of a classmate had needed to be knocked down a peg or two. After the bullies had fled, Steve, eye blackened and lip split, had looked up in skeptical gratitude at the other boy, a year his senior-

_“Thanks,” Steve wiped a hand across his mouth, leaving a smear of blood on the back of it. “You didn’t have to do that.”_

_“ ‘Course I did. Here, get up.”_

_The bigger boy reached a hand down. Steve took it, letting him help him to his feet, but dropping the boy’s hand as soon as he was steady._

_“Why? It wasn’t any of your business.”_

_The other boy looked down at Steve for a moment, blue-grey eyes clouding. Steve couldn’t help but notice his face, round and soft where Steve’s was pinched and sharp, no matter how much food he managed to choke down._

_“Fights should be fair,” the boy said simply. “And nothin’ about that fight was fair.”_

_Heat rose in Steve’s face as he mumbled out another thank you. He was embarrassed that he’d had to be rescued, but he was so thankful that this other boy hadn’t specifically mentioned anything about his diminutive stature or lack of muscle._

_“James Barnes,” the boy held out his hand as he introduced himself. “But everyone calls me Bucky.”_

_“Steve Rogers,” Steve shook Bucky’s hand, using every ounce of strength in the grip so as not to appear any weaker. “Good to meet you. How do you get ‘Bucky’ out of ‘James’?”_

_Bucky laughed at his forthrightness._

_“My middle name’s Buchanan.”_

_“Huh. James Buchanan. After the fifteenth president?”_

_“Yeah,” Bucky smiled at him. “Now c’mon, Steve, let’s get you patched up.”-_

Steve had assured Bucky that of course he was still needed. Captain America’s best pal, and the best marksman in the 107th to boot. Bucky had smiled with pride and gratitude at that. Really smiled, that beautiful smile of his that made his cheeks dimple and his eyes crease. Steve wanted that smile back. He wanted Bucky back.

This new line of thought gave him a swell of hope. Bucky was out there, not the Winter Soldier. They’d heard next-to-nothing of him, good or bad, so that meant he probably wasn’t killing anyone. Bucky was out there, he just didn’t know how to ask for Steve’s help. So Steve would reach out to Bucky. He’d be there for his friend, the way Bucky had always been there for him. He could even use Bucky’s own arguments to convince him to accept Steve’s help, the ones Bucky had used on Steve to varying degrees of success in the old days. It would be difficult, but he could do this. _They_ could do this-

He felt nearly giddy with the upswing in emotion, and he decided to email Sabine about visiting Peggy tomorrow. He knew she lived just outside of D.C., maybe she’d come and see Peggy with him. Strength in numbers and all that, and he enjoyed Sabine’s company. He should include her on that list of “silver” friends. The last time he’d seen her had been the previous April, at the funeral of Sam Sawyer’s grandson. Steve had felt out-of-place, having never met either “Happy Sam” or Antoine Triplett, but he’d known it was his job as Captain America to be there for the heroic grandson of a deceased Howling Commando, and that made everything easier. Captain America was better at dealing with social situations than Steve Rogers. Sabine had greeted him with sad eyes, but a warm smile, and introduced him to her older brother, Joseph. Both siblings had the same, glowing brown skin, and Steve could see that Sabine’s features were more like Gabe’s and Joseph’s like Peggy’s. He’d met the rest of Gabe and Peggy’s extended family that day, grandchildren and one great-grandchild, with another on the way, and it had made him happier than he should have been at a funeral.

All his “gold” friends were gone, save for Peggy and Bucky, but he’d looked up their legacies after the funeral. Gabe and Howard he’d already known. Jim Morita had retired with his wife, also deceased, in southern California. Dum Dum Dugan had never married, and he was reported K.I.A. on a S.H.I.E.L.D. aid mission to Sokovia. At the end of World War II, Jacques Dernier had moved back to Marseille and lived as a reasonably successful artist until he passed in the late 90’s. Monty Falsworth had returned to London a decorated war hero, and taken up the mantle of Union Jack, another patriotic superhero in the vein of Captain America. Morita and Falsworth had children and grandchildren, but none had reached out to Steve so he had no communication with any of them.

He’d already looked up Bucky’s parents and siblings long before that, right after the Winter Soldier’s disappearance. He’d had surveillance put on all of the surviving relatives, just in case Bucky decided to track them down, though he hadn’t yet. George and Winnie had both died in the mid-60’s, of cancer and a stroke, respectively. Rebecca had lived quite the adventurous lifestyle, traveling abroad and never settling down in any place for long until her death in 1992. Ruth Proctor, née Ruthie Barnes, had died two years after that, following her husband and leaving behind two unmarried adult children who lived somewhere in upstate New York. John Barnes had died in 2009, leaving behind his wife, his son, and a granddaughter named after her intrepid great-aunt Rebecca. Steve hadn’t reached out to any of them, either. He wasn’t sure if he should feel bad about that or not.

He sat at his desk, constructing his message to Sabine in his head, opened the laptop, and logged on.

Just like that, the impossibly wonderful hope he’d been entertaining was sucked from his chest, like dust into a vacuum. There was only one new message waiting in his inbox, another email from _Natalia Romanova_ . He opened it immediately, automatically, reflecting that Nat had specifically made him promise only to _tell_ her if he got more videos, not wait to watch them with her.

This message had no subject line, and the video was only a little over twenty minutes. His hands seemed to move of their own accord, eager to crush his hope as easily as they could crush steel. The video’s intro was Sin by herself, her face filling the screen as she smiled sadistically at the camera.

“Hey, _Stevie,”_ she giggled. “Brock’s out gathering intel or something, so you just got me this time.”

He paused the video, studying Sin’s face. She couldn’t be a day over twenty-five, and even that was a stretch. Her skin was smooth, unwrinkled and unblemished except for a tiny scar over the right curve of her lip. Her freckles made her seem even younger, but as Steve left her face frozen on his screen, delaying for just a few seconds more whatever awful thing he was about to see happening to his dearest friend, he noticed something in Sin’s wide brown eyes. Something that spoke of horror, and pain, and he wondered what had been done to her to turn her into the leering villain he saw now. He wondered if there was hope for her. He also knew, deep down, that he was really wondering about Bucky.

He played the video.

“It’s out of order from what we’ve already sent you,” she continued. “But this is my favorite one, honestly. I mean, it’s hard to choose a favorite, there are so many good ones, but this one’s _real_ good. Enjoy!”

She reached out and turned off the camera. The black screen quickly cut to the shaky, audio-delayed surveillance camera from Bucky’s cell as two masked HYDRA guards dragged Bucky inside and dumped him prone on his cot, stepping back to observe him. Steve tried to gauge the time frame. It had to be after the events of the first video, but before he’d stopped eating. Before the assault by Feró and Stas. Bucky was naked, one-armed, he looked thinner but not starved, and his hair was only down to his ears. He groaned, wincing and turning over on the bed, and as he did Steve briefly saw the two dark scars on the middle of his back, above where his kidneys would be. Where Zola had removed Bucky’s adrenal glands, probably weeks before this footage was taken. Steve felt the heat rise in his face, umbrage in his heart. His rage intensified once Bucky had finished rolling over, and Steve saw the new scar, angry and inflamed, running down the length of Bucky’s cock where it hung lonely between his hairless legs, bigger than it had been in the final video. Bucky lay on his back, legs spread with the pain from this newest mutilation, and his eyes were closed. He was shaking, the rickety bed frame clinking against the stone wall and floor.

 _“I almost feel bad for him,”_ one of the guards commented in subtitled German. _“Can you imagine- ?”_

 _“Save your pity,”_ the other man said in Russian. Steve was pretty sure neither of them were Feró or Stas, but with the way their backs were to the camera, not to mention the masks, he couldn’t be certain. _“He’s an enemy of HYDRA, he deserves everything he gets.”_

Bucky groaned again. His arm twitched. His eyes remained shut.

“Agh, fuck. Every time they put me under, I wake up with something else cut off. What- what did he do to me this time?”

He was trying to infuse his tone with false bravado, but it wasn’t fooling anyone. The HYDRA minions looked at each other.

_“Do we punish him for using English?”_

_“Give him a moment to correct himself.”_

A few seconds later, Bucky repeated the question in halting Russian.

 _“Mr. M insisted you not be allowed carnal pleasures ever again, because those are for men, and you are no longer a man,”_ the first guard answered with disgust. _“The doctor cut out something in your cock this afternoon to make sure of that.”_

“What?”

Bucky forgot to speak in Russian as his eyes flew open in dismay. His arm twitched again, raising, hand grasping between his legs. He quivered with pain when he brushed the cut on his penis, but he didn’t let go of it. His fingers gently explored the unresponsive shaft, stroking up and down from the circumcised head to the base.

 _“I don’t know why you’re so upset,”_ the first man continued. _“What good was it without your balls, anyway?”_

 _“Say goodbye to your days of a hard cock,”_ the second guard jeered in spiteful glee. _“It will be numb and soft forever now. No more pussy for you, American.”_

Bucky seemed completely unprepared to process this latest abasement to his body. He gaped at the guards for a moment, then his eyes closed, his hand rested on his thigh, and he turned his head towards the wall, away from the mocking minions of HYDRA.

 _“I think he’s going to cry,”_ the second guard laughed, mean and ugly. _“Are you going to cry, you pathetic little_ yevnukh?”

There was no subtitled translation for the last word, but Steve was pretty sure he got the gist of it. Bucky didn’t move, save for the trembling of his body and the steady rise and fall of his chest. A moment later, a harsh buzzer sounded from somewhere inside the HYDRA base.

 _“Shit, we have to go,”_ the first man hurriedly left the camera’s frame. _“Can’t be late for drills.”_

 _“Yes, of course. Oh, here,”_ the second man threw a crumpled hospital gown on Bucky’s chest. Bucky didn’t acknowledge it. _“Your deficiency is sickening, American. Cover yourself up.”_

The guard turned his back on Bucky without another thought as the same buzzer sounded again. The cell door slammed behind him. Silence crackled over the laptop’s speakers as Steve’s heart pounded in his chest. His angry, huffing breaths echoed in his ears as he waited for something to happen.

Slowly, Bucky’s hand drifted from his thigh back to the damage between his legs. His head stayed turned to the wall, eyes closed. He touched himself hesitantly, stroking around the newly forming scar, fingers brushing the head of his cock before reaching farther down to play with the loose folds of his empty scrotum which was all-but invisible, shrunken as it was with no balls to hold anymore. After a few interminable minutes of this, Bucky began to sob.

Steve hadn’t seen Bucky cry- _really_ cry, not eyes wet with emotion, or tears drawn out by unbearable physical pain- like this since he was a kid. Bucky’s face crumpled, his mouth opened, and his eyes clenched vainly against the deluge of tears pouring from them. He brought his hand up to clutch at his face, muffling his cries into wet, gasping intervals as his shoulders shook. He lay on his back and wept into his hand for nearly ten minutes. A young man whose world had been irreparably shattered, his hope, his very identity destroyed, and he could do nothing but mourn the loss of it. Steve desperately wanted to go to him. To offer solace, if Bucky would even have accepted it from him, as unfairly ashamed as he must be. Steve also wanted to rip everyone in that HYDRA base limb from limb until there was nothing left but quivering piles of red meat.

He couldn’t do any of those things. He was seventy years too late.

Bucky was still sobbing when the video cut out. Sin’s face grinned at him once more, and Steve imagined how it would look if her head was struck by a bullet at that precise moment. How her forehead would explode in crimson gore, and her eyes would roll back, if they weren’t obliterated entirely, and that smirk would be wiped off her face as she fell to the floor, out of the camera’s frame and happily out of his sight-

“What did you think? Told you it was good, huh? Brockie didn’t like it so much, but I think that’s ‘cause he doesn’t like thinking about his dick not working anymore.”

There had to be something they could do for Bucky, Steve reflected suddenly. If they found him- _when_ they found him- there was something that could be done to restore him. Stark had billions of dollars, connections, surely Bucky could-

 _If he’s still even_ ** _Bucky,_** _and if he even accepts your help. Not to mention if Tony wants to spend his time and money sexually restoring the man who murdered his parents-_

“Personally,” Sin was still talking. “I think it’s _hot._ It makes me wet, thinking about your friend, crying like a little bitch because they fucked-up his manhood. Mmm.”

Her voice got higher, breathier, and she leaned back in the chair she’d been sitting in as she filmed. Steve saw her right arm move offscreen, its position between her legs apparent as she got herself off on Bucky’s pain and humiliation, and Steve shut the laptop’s screen. He didn’t need to see any more.

He stared at the computer on his desk for a few moments, almost warily, as if it might bite him. Or worse, open itself and show him that video again.

His hope had been foolish. Of course it had. All his memories, good and bad, meant absolutely nothing, jack-fucking- _shit_ in the face of the current situation. He’d been projecting onto Bucky, and Sin had brought him screeching back to reality. It was naïve of him, downright selfish, to expect that Bucky would be the same after all of this. That he’d ever be the same, confident and protective. So insecure when he thought he couldn’t be what he was supposed to be. The man he thought of as _his_ Bucky. His. As if Bucky was every bit the object that HYDRA had tried to turn him into-

_Enough._

He would get Bucky back. The man he was now, no matter how different he inevitably was from the man Steve had known, he was still _Bucky._ He had to be. He had to, because Steve couldn’t accept the alternative.

“Friday,” Steve’s voice was dull in his ears. “Can you tell Natasha I want to see her?”

“Ms. Romanoff is currently in a teleconference with Mr. Stark and Dr. Cho,” Friday said, pleasant as always. “Do you wish for me to interrupt?”

Steve thought for a moment. He wanted to speak to Nat right away, to know what she’d found out, no matter how little that was. He knew she’d found _something._ Nat always did. He wanted to see her, the urgency pounding in his chest along with his heartbeat, but he didn’t want to interrupt her meeting. The teleconference he should have been in as well. If he had Friday call Natasha at his request, Tony and Helen would be curious. At the very least, they’d know the excuse Natasha had given them on his behalf wasn’t entirely true.

He couldn’t face Tony right now, not with all the lies he’d end up telling the man who he claimed his friend. His “silver” friend.

_My silver-tongued, silver friend. Whose parents, one of them a gold friend, were killed by another gold friend, but not actually him, not actually, never him, never him again-_

“Captain Rogers?”

Friday snapped him out of his meandering descent into despair.

“No, Friday. That’s alright. Please let her know as soon as she gets out.”

“Yes, Captain Rogers. Is there anything else you need?”

He so rarely asked Friday for anything. He rarely needed anything he couldn’t get himself. Usually what he couldn’t get himself, he made do without.

“No, that’s all. Thank you, Friday.”

Friday knew about the emails. However that worked, the whole artificial intelligence thing, she knew. Which meant, if the protocols Tony had assured and reassured Steve about privacy weren’t real, then Tony could know. He thought that might almost make it easier, not having to say the words out loud to Tony. That Tony would know, would have seen, the full extent of the horror exacted on Bucky to make him do things he never would in his right mind. That Tony could understand, and forgive. Not forgive Bucky, who had done nothing to be forgiven for, but to forgive Steve for not telling him. Every day he didn’t tell him was one more delay for which Tony would have to forgive him. Tony was a good man, a better man than he generally let on, but Steve didn’t know if anyone was _that_ good. Certainly not Steve himself.

He wondered if Nat had the same internal conflict when she spoke to Tony. Probably not. She was a master spy, secrets were her trade. Natasha and Tony didn’t have the same relationship as Steve and Tony. Nat got along with Tony, but they often clashed, on both personal and ideological levels. Nat was also good friends with Pepper, and the tumultuous nature of Pepper and Tony’s romantic relationship often meant choosing sides. Natasha always sided with Pepper.

Steve took a breath and opened the laptop before he could change his mind. He quickly exited out of Sin’s message and began composing an email to Sabine. That had been the original objective, and he clung to it.

Sabine was always good about responding to messages promptly, and this time was no exception. Her reply came less than five minutes after Steve had hit _send._

_I’m at a conference in Seattle all week, otherwise I’d love to visit Mom with you. You should still go, I know she loves to see you. Raincheck on the joint visit?_

He sent her back a short message, full of the same vague pleasantries and promises that neither of them were likely to fulfill. He would still go. He _would_ see Peggy tomorrow. He wouldn’t chicken out of it, not this time.

While he waited for Nat to finish with Tony and Helen, he pulled out his sketchbook. He hadn’t done more than doodle in weeks, but he found himself with the need to move his hand over the page, to see what came out of it. He drew in black-and-white, using graphite and charcoal pencils. The first page was nothing but swirls, but the second evolved into eyes. So many eyes, open, shut, big, small. By the third page, the eyes gained noses, then mouths, ears, cheeks, and chins, and Steve knew who he was drawing. He didn’t want to, if only because he didn’t want the thoughts and feelings that face brought with it, but he was compelled to keep drawing. To finish.

The fourth and fifth pages became a jumble of Bucky’s face in miniature. Bucky as he’d known him, Bucky as he was now, a few with the blank eyes of the Winter Soldier. Steve’s heart lurched every time he finished a new one, but he kept going.

When he’d completed the sixth page, he knew he was done. Bucky’s face filled the space, one face. His hair was long as it had been on the Helicarrier, the last time Steve had seen him, and his face was lean, but the rest of him was the Bucky Steve had thought he’d left in 1945. There was life in his eyes, and he was smiling out at Steve like he’d just told one of his wry jokes and was waiting for his friend to laugh along with him.

_What if that man doesn’t exist anymore? What if he does, and he doesn’t want your help?_

But a smile tugged at the corner of Steve’s lips as he looked at the Bucky he hoped could exist. None of his doubts mattered, because it was _Bucky._ It was Bucky, and Steve had to try.


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

Steve left for D.C. at 5:00 in the morning. He’d called the afternoon before to let Peggy’s retirement home know he’d be coming, after Nat had come to see him.

“I spend so much time in your room lately,” she’d quipped when he’d opened the door to her knock. “What _will_ the neighbors think?”

He’d gone to straight to business: How were Tony and Helen? What did they talk about in the teleconference? Any news from Vienna? Had she found anything new on Rumlow, Schmidt, or those videos? Nat’s answers were: Fine, and they hope you’re well. We talked about general costs in the science division, and slowly improving Avengers PR. Nothing yet, Sam wants to track down one more lead before calling the mission. No, there’s no indication as to Rumlow and Schmidt’s whereabouts; and, yes, there’s some new information on the videos, bits and pieces, and I’ll prepare a full report and give it to you as soon as I’ve collected everything.

Frustrated, he’d eaten dinner and swum laps to exhaustion in the Olympic-size underground pool. No dreams when he’d finally gone to sleep. He actually felt rested when his alarm woke him at 4:30.

He dressed in khakis and a maroon long-sleeved polo. Not too casual, but not too formal. In the motor pool he chose the 2015 silver 2015 Mustang GT. Traffic was non-existent and he made good time to the I-95, windows rolled down, _70’s on 7_ turned up and Boston’s “Feelin’ Satisfied” drifting in his wake. The air was cold, in the low thirties, but Steve barely felt it.

It only took him four hours and twenty-eight minutes to get to Sunrise Senior Living in D.C. With no passengers, Steve felt no obligation to go the speed limit. He parked in visitor’s parking and made his way to the mansion-like complex’s front desk. The girl sitting there was young, and he wasn’t sure if she recognized him or not, but if she did she remained professional about it as she checked him in and gave him a visitor badge. He appreciated that. Sometimes people recognized him outside his Captain America uniform and got starstruck, or worse, adamantly vocal about his identity. It made him profoundly uncomfortable. _“Just go with it,”_ Tony would tell him whenever they were recognized together in public. _“It’s fun. Perks of saving the world once or twice.”_ But Steve always felt guilty about the fame and praise. _“Fucking ‘Greatest Generation,’”_ Tony would grumble, teasing him, and maybe that was it. Maybe Steve’s biggest problem with the attention was that deep down he liked it, and he was convinced that made him a terrible person. Tony had no such qualms. Steve envied his freedom.

He missed Tony. He missed him, but thinking about him made Steve’s gut twist with an even stronger guilt than that produced by his own vanity, and he shoved his thoughts of Tony aside as he walked the bright, empty corridor to Peggy’s room. It smelled strongly of disinfectant. Sterile-

_Sterilized-_

The unwanted train of thought was immediately derailed as he knocked on the door and heard an unfamiliar voice call out an invitation to enter. The voice was high and kind. It sounded like a young woman’s voice, and Steve tensed with the anxiety of an unexpected encounter with a new person. The anxiety only increased once he saw who it was, and that he did, in fact, recognize her as she rose from a chair beside Peggy’s bed.

“Captain Rogers?”

“Kate?”

He knew that wasn’t her name, but he didn’t know her real one. He had no idea why she was here, but visions clouded his mind of a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. continuing to keep tabs on him.

“It’s Sharon, actually,” she smiled warmly at him. “Sharon Carter. You can come in, you don’t have to hover in the door.”

“Uh, right.”

Steve entered the room, shutting the door behind him. This room was nicer than the room Peggy had been in when he’d visited previously. It was bigger, with a blue-curtained window by the bed. Pictures and books lined the walls and shelves, and there was a dresser with a large mirror for Peggy’s clothes in the corner by what Steve assumed was a closet. Peggy was reclining on her bed in a sweater, linen pants, and slippers. Steve was glad to see her out of her hospital gown. She smiled at him, too, and her recognition quelled his pounding heart.

“Steve,” Peggy croaked out, struggling to sit up higher. “They told me you were coming- no, don’t help me, I’m fine!”

Both Steve and Sharon had stepped forward to assist Peggy with her movement on the bed, but they stopped immediately, grinning sheepishly at each other. Peggy still had that effect.

“There,” Peggy said once she’d settled herself to her liking. “That’s better. Hello, Steve. It’s good to see you. I see you’ve met my great-niece Sharon already?”

“Um, yeah,” Steve struggled to wrap his head around the new information. “Yes. Yes I have.”

“Excellent. Well, sit down and we’ll catch up, shall we?”

Sharon reclaimed her seat and Steve pulled up another chair beside her.

This visit went much better than his last two. Peggy was cogent the entire time, and she and Sharon filled Steve in on Carter and Jones family news. Steve gave them general Avengers news, obviously nothing about his search for Bucky or any of the information he’d recently received on that front. He wasn’t sure how much either of them knew about that, or what they would do with anything he told them, given that he was talking to two former spies. And not completely former, in Sharon’s case, he discovered as the conversation progressed.

As they spoke, Steve wondered how Peggy felt about S.H.I.E.L.D.’s collapse. About the HYDRA weed that had grown inside it for nearly seventy years until it choked the life out of her brainchild. About how Steve had been instrumental in destroying the shell of HYDRA that had called itself S.H.I.E.L.D. It had needed to go, he was still convinced of the rightness of that decision. It had needed to burn. Scatter the ashes, salt the earth. HYDRA was too insidious to let a whiff survive.

_After what they did to Bucky- and I didn’t know the half of it back then-_

He wondered what he would have done if he _had_ known-

_Stop._

Steve wondered how Peggy felt about all of it, but he didn’t ask, and she didn’t offer.

They talked for hours, through Peggy’s lunch, which she offered to share but both her guests politely declined. It was nearly 2:00 in the afternoon when Peggy informed them that she needed to rest.

“It was so wonderful to see you both,” she beamed at them. “Sharon, I’ll see you tomorrow before your flight. And, Steve, I’ll see you again soon?”

There was such hope in her voice, and Steve promised her that he would. In the moment he meant every word.

“So,” he asked Sharon once they were out in the hallway, beginning their walk to the parking lot. “Aunt Peggy, huh?”

“Yep,” she laughed. “Good old Aunt Peggy. My childhood hero, and nothing much has changed.”

“You picked a great hero.”

“Yes, I know.”

They walked together in silence for a moment while Steve grasped at tendrils of conversation, trying to remember details from the hours of small talk.

“So, you’re CIA now? Flying back where tomorrow?”

“I’m stationed in Berlin right now. I guess spying’s in my blood,” Sharon laughed. “Sorry about all that. You know, before, at S.H.I.E.L.D. When we were neighbors.”

“It’s fine,” Steve said reflexively. “It was your job, and you were good at it.”

“Well, thanks. You just- you looked so betrayed the last time I saw you. When you were coming out of Pierce’s office, and I thought _you’re in the wrong line of work, buddy,_ but I guess I felt bad, too. I’ve never felt that bad about a mission before.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Guess so,” Sharon agreed easily.

They passed the front desk. There was a new receptionist there, a man in his early thirties. He casually checked Sharon out, then gaped when he realized who her companion was. Steve hurried out the front doors, into the November sunshine.

“Maybe it was because I knew about your history,” Sharon put on a burst of speed to keep pace with Steve, heeled boots clicking on the sidewalk. “You and Aunt Peggy. Every time I, uh, flirted with you, I was thinking of it like a betrayal. That’s why it never went beyond talking.”

“It was your job,” Steve repeated. “I think Peggy would’ve been fine with it.”

“I’m not sure that’s true,” Sharon laughed guiltily. “But, thanks.”

She stopped at a light blue Volvo with rental plates, fumbling for her keys in her purse. She really was quite beautiful, he acknowledged. Tall, even without the heels, and wearing tight jeans and a white blouse, her golden hair framing her pretty face, longer and straighter than she’d worn it as Kate. She was the type of woman every hot-blooded male would find attractive. Every hot-blooded _heterosexual_ man would find attractive, he immediately corrected himself. Or _should_ find attractive. And Natasha would be exasperated with him if she found out he’d met Sharon here by accident and hadn’t asked her out for coffee, or at least gotten her phone number-

But the onus was off of him, he thought with relief. Sharon wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with Steve, out of respect for Peggy. It was a little creepy, the longer he thought about it. Old man making a move on his former, almost-lover’s niece? He didn’t want to be that guy.

Sharon found her keys and the car made a loud chirping noise when she pressed the automatic unlock. Steve opened the front door for her.

“Such a gentleman, thank you.”

She extended her right hand, which he shook.

“Take care of yourself, Captain Rogers.”

“It’s just Steve.”

“Steve,” she smiled at him. “If you ever need anything- I can’t promise that I’ll be able to help, but I’ll try my damnedest.”

He thought for a moment about trusting her to help him find Bucky. He’d trusted people before on far less. Sam and Natasha sprang to his mind, and that had turned out alright.

“Thanks, Sharon. Really. I’ll let you know.”

Steve stepped back and watched her drive away.

He was afraid to trust her. It was one thing if it was his life on the line, but someone else’s? Bucky’s? He couldn’t risk the CIA hunting down the Winter Soldier first. He couldn’t risk Bucky being chained up in Guantanamo, or, more likely, a bullet put through his brain, his body dumped in a river, and Steve would never know. He’d search and search, and he’d never know-

_What if it’s already happened?_

It hadn’t, he reassured himself, because if the CIA or any correlating government agency had found Bucky, dead or alive, they’d want the world to know. They’d parade him through the news cycles, and Steve would at least have _some_ closure. No, the only reason Bucky would be lying somewhere with a bullet in his head was if he’d been the one to eat said bullet, and a new terror gripped him. He thought of Bucky in the video, trying to starve himself to death. Maybe he’d tried again; maybe he’d succeeded-

_Would you try and follow him this time, too?_

Because, if that happened, no insistence that _it wasn’t your fault_ would ever be able to touch him, and there would never again be an utterance of _we’ll find him._

The return to the Avenger’s facility was slower, due to traffic and Steve’s distractedness. It was 7:16 when he pulled into the motor pool. Natasha was waiting for him in the main lobby. She must have watched him come in on the security feed.

“It’s not an emergency,” she said immediately when she saw the worry on his face. “I just wanted to let you know that I got another message from Sam and Wanda. There was a situation, but it’s handled. It wasn’t Barnes, it was Rumlow, he escaped, and Sam and Wanda are heading back right now.”

Her words were measured, but rushed to ameliorate him quickly.

“You should have contacted me. _They_ should have contacted me.”

“You were busy, and it wasn’t an emergency.”

“I should have been contacted,” he repeated belligerently. “We’re co-leaders here.”

“Honestly, Steve? This is too close to home for you. Your objectivity’s compromised here.”

His anger swelled, proving her point, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

“Yeah, well, sorry that watching my best friend being _tortured_ compromises me. Sorry I’m not a- a _robot.”_

He threw in the final jab because he knew it would hurt her, having been thrown at her for her entire life. It did. Her eyes widened, then narrowed. He was immediately ashamed of himself.

“This is hard for me, too, Steve. You think it was easy to watch those videos? I’m not always the paragon of objectivity, especially when I can see one of my friends in pain.”

He knew she was referring to him.

“Nat, I’m sorry, I- ”

“And,” she interrupted him loudly. “There was a time, before S.H.I.E.L.D., before Clint and Nick- there was a time I would have tried to hunt Barnes down and kill him myself.”

Her hand moved involuntarily to press against her stomach, right where the scar she’d once shown him was. The scar Bucky- the Winter Soldier- had given her when he’d shot through her to kill the man behind her. She undoubtedly had another scar from where he’d shot her in the shoulder a few days after she’d shown Steve the first scar. Then there was what she’d told him recently about the Red Room.

“I wouldn't,” she added. “Of course I wouldn't, now that I know- but don’t- don’t you dare accuse me of not feeling this. Because I do.”

He thought of Tony. How long, and how much, could he test Tony’s objectivity?

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he was. “That was cruel of me.”

“It’s fine,” she absolved him. “I should have let you know something when Sam contacted me. Our whole chain of command is completely fucked up, isn’t it?”

“Language,” he chided her facetiously.

She cocked an eyebrow at him, the corner of her mouth twitching towards a smile.

“Oh, do I owe a nickel to the Swear Jar?”

“Well, you said ‘fuck.’ I think that’s at least a quarter.”

Nat laughed, and it warmed his heart.

“I hate to say it, but we need Tony. He’s better at that stuff. The being in charge part, anyway.”

Steve’s heart lurched, even as he smirked at her.

“I’m gonna tell him you said that.”

“Don’t you fucking dare, Rogers!”

As they laughed, making amends, Steve felt a new surge of anger towards Nat. Was she feeling the same guilt as he was regarding the secrets they were keeping from Tony? Why was it Steve’s responsibility to tell him, and not hers?

_You know why._

He tamped down his anger and said nothing.


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

“Welcome back Ms. Maximoff, Mr. Wilson.”

Friday’s voice filled the lobby as Wanda and Sam made their way in from the hangar. Steve was sitting on a couch, crumpled newspaper in his lap. He’d read the front page at least nine times, but he wouldn’t have been able to tell anyone what it said. He’d been waiting for two hours, avoiding his email, until he heard the Quinjet’s descent. Natasha had left him to go for a run, and probably to continue her research. Vision had been coming in and out of the lobby periodically, looking vaguely like a sad puppy, also waiting for the Quinjet to land. He was closest to Wanda of all the Avengers. Steve supposed it had to do with the Mind Stone, the source of Wanda’s powers and of Vision’s very existence.

He used his communicator to page Nat and Rhodey as he stood to greet his returning friends, discarding the newspaper on the cushions behind him. He was expecting Sam to make a joke about it, but Sam didn’t. As he came closer, Steve could see the strain on his face. Wanda’s as well, but to a lesser degree.

“Wanda, you’re back,” Vision came up behind Steve, silent as a cat. It was rare that someone could sneak up on him, and he hated how it startled him every time. “I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” Wanda smiled at Vision, than at Steve. “Both of you. I’m sorry, Steve, we did not find your friend.”

“Found something though,” Sam said stormily. “Rumlow sends his regards. He’s calling himself ‘Crossbones’ now, how lame is that?”

Steve laughed half-heartedly.

“Why is that, as you say, _lame?”_

Vision’s inquiry was quizzically polite. Sam’s reply of _“it just is, Robocop,”_ clearly did nothing to alleviate his puzzlement, but he asked no follow-up. Natasha and Rhodey entered the lobby soon after, and once everyone had said their greetings, Steve, Nat, Sam, and Wanda made their way to the boardroom for the debriefing.

The report wasn’t that complicated. Falcon and Scarlet Witch had arrived in Vienna at 0400 hours CET. They’d met with McBryde less than half-an-hour later, before her hospital shift began. The information she’d given them had strongly indicated that the Winter Soldier was- or very recently had been- in Vienna, so they’d started tracking down leads. However, after only a day, they’d discovered that the man in the video was not Bucky Barnes, but Brock Rumlow, aka Crossbones.

“He made it so convincing,” Sam said. “He had a fake metal arm, a wig, and I’m pretty sure he had one of those photostatic veil things, too. I was so sure I was looking at Barnes.”

Steve wondered if he would have been able to tell the difference.

_You should have gone with them._

“I should have known,” Sam continued. “I mean, you figure the guy would’ve at least got a haircut by now.”

Steve had considered that. The Bucky he knew had always kept his hair short, but this unknown entity with Bucky’s face might prefer it long.

He had to stop thinking like that. It was Bucky. It _was._

Falcon and Scarlet Witch had discovered their target’s true identity after tracking him down to a seedy hotel. Rumlow had caught them by surprise once they’d entered his room by using a low-frequency sonic transponder to disrupt Scarlet Witch’s telepathy. Then he’d shot at her. Luckily, the transponder’s frequency had been too low to disrupt her other abilities.

“I managed to block it,” Wanda made a shielding gesture with her hands in front of her chest. “But the force pushed me out the window.”

“Seventh floor,” Sam said darkly. “And, I forgot- I mean, I _know_ she can basically fly, but- ”

Steve could see in his friend’s troubled face all the horrible flashbacks that watching a teammate fall had reawakened in Sam.

“I let him get away,” Sam finished flatly. “He could’ve killed me, too, but he didn’t. And he had a message for you, Cap. Right before he left. ‘Tell Rogers to come face me himself next time, unless he’s as nutless as his boyfriend.’”

There was a hint of curiosity in Sam’s eyes, but he didn’t ask, and Steve didn’t offer any explanation for Rumlow’s taunt, although it made his vision cloud momentarily with rage.

“It was my fault,” Wanda began to apologize. “I should have- ”

“It was no one’s fault,” Natasha reassured her calmly. “You’re still new to this, and there were extenuating circumstances. We’ll learn from this, and do better next time.”

Wanda closed her mouth and nodded, but she still looked stricken. Sam was staring at the wall behind Steve, clearly lost in troubled memories. Steve knew he should have gone with them.

After they adjourned, Steve caught Sam in the hallway as Nat and Wanda walked ahead.

“You okay?”

“No,” Sam was blunt. “And I think I need a little space, alright?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

Steve watched Sam walk away from him, and he fought through his own morass of pain to reach out to him. It felt like he was slogging through molasses inside his brain.

“Sam, wait.”

Sam stopped, looked back over his shoulder impatiently.

“You wanna go get a beer or something?”

Sam thought for a moment.

“I’m not really up to going out.”

“We could stay here,” Steve realized he wasn’t really up to going out, either. “See what Tony’s got for us in the fridge?”

Sam took another pause.

“Okay, yeah,” he said finally. “Let’s order a pizza, too. Well, make that five pizzas, the way you eat. You should be, like, four hundred pounds, it’s really not fair.”

Steve laughed, relieved to have broken through Sam’s wall.

“Super-soldier metabolism,” he patted his taut abdomen. “Gotta love it.”

“Maybe _you,_ do,” Sam muttered with a twinkle in his eye.

“Fine, you order an adequate amount of pizza, I’ll grab the beer. Meet you in the kitchen?”

“Sounds good. But none of that fancy crap Tony likes. Something cheap and American.”

Steve assured Sam that he would choose the poorest quality beer possible, and Sam’s laughter followed him down the hallway. Before they met up in the kitchen, Steve went to check on Wanda, but Friday informed him that she was already asleep, so he went to the giant refrigerator and grabbed a six-pack of Lone Star that he was half-convinced Tony had supplied as a joke just for him. Alcohol might not affect him anymore, but he still enjoyed the ritual of drinking, sharing it with his friends, and his teammates knew that-

_-Bucky was dragging him to the former speakeasy around the corner of Steve’s apartment, now a legitimate, legal establishment since the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment at the end of the previous year. Bucky wasn’t quite seventeen, and Steve was five months away from fifteen, but old Kasper would serve anyone who had the money for it, and today was payday-_

Another memory, triggering more. Drinking with the Commandos, and Bucky’s inebriated insistence that the _true tragedy_ of the Captain America origin story was that Erskine hadn’t let him have that one last drink the night before the procedure that would take away his ability to ever get _ripped off his ass_ again-

_-alcohol always made him sick to his stomach, and he was so small that it only took one drink to get his buzz on, but he loved how talkative it made Bucky. He’d laugh and joke, make a pass at Kasper’s daughter Anna if she was working that night. Best of all, how touchy he’d get with Steve. Patting his shoulder, clapping him on the back. Tonight was no exception. “You’re the best pal a guy could have, Stevie,” Bucky confessed around his fourth beer, and Steve let him get away with the hated nickname because he was moved by the sincerity in Bucky’s voice and the reassuring weight of his hand on his shoulder. Later, after Bucky had five under his belt, he threw an arm over Steve’s shoulders as they walked back to Steve’s apartment, laughing too loudly, and Steve never wanted it to end. He was still suffering from the one-and-a-half beers he’d foolishly imbibed, but he was steadier than Bucky, and he tried his best to hold Bucky up, guiding him to Steve’s front door-_

He hadn’t thought about that in years. Maybe not since the 1930’s. How Bucky had crashed on his sofa that night. How there had been a moment, right before Bucky tumbled onto the cushions, Steve still holding him up, a moment so brief that he’d convinced himself at the time that it hadn’t happened, that he thought Bucky was going to kiss him. Which was ridiculous, he’d told himself, heart racing, as he watched Bucky sprawl out on the sofa and fall right to sleep. Absolutely ridiculous, and he’d put it out of his mind.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

When he got to the kitchen, Sam was already sitting on one of the high-backed stools at the counter, and Steve suddenly wanted Sam to meet Bucky. The man, not the weapon that had terrorized them on the bridge and helicarrier. The real Bucky. He wanted his silver and gold friends to be friends.

“Pizza’s on the way,” Sam looked at the beer’s label as Steve set the six-pack down in front of him. “Texas beer, huh? Fine, I guess it’ll do.”

Sam pulled a bottle from the flimsy cardboard box and used the bottle opener he’d brought to uncap it. It clattered across the countertop as Steve sat down beside Sam. He grabbed a bottle himself, using his thumb to casually flick the cap off, grinning when Sam muttered “show-off,” at the display. He _could_ be a show-off sometimes. Even after all this time, he appreciated the strength and ability of his post-serum body. Most of his life had gone to shit since then, but at least _this_ was still good.

_Selfish. Look what the body of your dreams cost your supposed best friend._

**_But he would have died in Austria if I hadn’t- I- I saved him!_ **

_Not when it really counted-_

“Steve? Earth to Steve?”

Steve looked up from his untouched beer. He’d been unconsciously peeling the label off. Half a golden star was gone, and the label read ONE AR EER. He wiped off the condensation on his hand on his jeans.

“Sorry, I was just- thinking.”

“Yeah, it’s contagious, I guess.”

Sam took a swig of beer and Steve followed suit. It tasted alright, neither particularly good nor terrible. The perfect beer for the occasion.

“You wanna talk about it?” Steve asked, because he didn’t want to talk about his own thoughts. “What happened in Vienna with Wanda, I mean?”

“I’m gonna need at least two more beers,” Sam warned him. “But yeah, I kinda do.”

“Well, I’m not stopping you,” Steve pushed the box closer to Sam. “Have at it.”

True to his assessment, Sam was three-fourths of the way through his fourth beer when he started talking openly. The pizza had come about an hour before. Five boxes, two pepperoni-olive-mushroom, two ham-and-pineapple, and one meat-lover’s. They’d swiftly demolished it all, Steve eating the equivalent of four boxes to Sam’s one. Sam had drunk far more beer, however. Steve was still on his first.

“It’s just- I _knew_ she’d be alright,” Sam gesticulated wildly, sloshing his beer around in its bottle. “I _knew,_ intellectually. Emotionally, though, my body wouldn’t listen. It was like I was watching Riley fall all over again.”

He stopped himself. Swallowed hard.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said, because he was, and because he had nothing else he could say.

“Sometimes I get a little jealous of you, you know? Your friend fell, too, but he’s still out there. Me? I’m never gonna see Riley again. Wasn’t even a body left to bury.”

_That’s what I thought, too._

“You know, me and Riley,” Sam spoke to Steve without looking at him, stumbling over his words. “We were- we were close. Like- _real_ close. Like- ”

He trailed off, and Steve had a thought that he never would have had before he’d seen those videos. He vocalized the thought before he even had a chance to fully process it.

“Were you lovers?”

Sam’s head snapped up, his drunken eyes focusing on Steve’s with laser precision. Steve couldn’t read his expression, and he was afraid he’d overstepped his bounds. He didn’t know what to say next, but luckily Sam’s gaze softened and he responded first.

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly, almost gratefully. “I didn’t- I mean, I never thought I’d say that out loud, but, _yeah.”_

“Oh,” Steve said, feeling stupid but plunging in. “I didn’t realize- I mean I- I thought you liked girls?”

“I do,” Sam answered openly. “And before Riley, I thought they were all I liked. But, you know, sexuality is fluid, bisexuality is more common than people think, and when you put people in extreme circumstances, where they have to completely trust someone else, sometimes those things come to the surface.”

“I, uh, what?”

“Dude, you’ve been defrosted for three years. You gotta know about the 1960s sexual revolution by now.”

Sam was getting defensive, having had his secret laid bare, and Steve was desperate to put him back at ease.

“I do, yeah, but- ”

Steve was grasping, uncomfortable, and angry with himself for feeling so uncomfortable.

“This mean you’re gonna look at me different now, Cap? ‘Cause, I gotta tell you, that’s disappointing.”

“No! No,” Steve exclaimed vehemently. “Of- of course not, it’s just- ”

The snarl of his thoughts choked him.

 _It’s just, I’ve been having similar thoughts myself. Was-_ **_is-_ ** _Bucky bisexual? Am I? Or do I even like women like that?_

“I’m sorry,” he said at last. “You know me, I’ve never been great with words, and this is- I’m trying to- ”

“You’ve never been great with words?” Sam was offering him no leniency. “Dude, remember the battle at the Triskelion? That inspiring speech you made over the intercom? That was goddamn fucking _poetic.”_

Steve thought back. He barely remembered what he’d said, the words had just flowed from him and he’d known them to be right. Maybe Sam had a point, but Steve had to show him he wasn’t completely correct.

“That- that wasn’t _me,_ though. That was Captain America.”

“This conversation took a worrisome turn,” Sam sounded bemused. "Remember, I'm a therapist, not a psychologist. And I'm not _your_ therapist."

“I mean- I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just, when I have the suit, and the mask, and the shield, it’s like- like I’m not me, not really. I’m _bigger_ than me. Captain America is _bigger_ than Steve Rogers, do you get it?”

“Sort of. I think.”

“The point is, I’m not going to look at you differently, Sam,” Steve tried his best to channel Captain America. “I’m grateful that you trusted me with this, and I promise to be worthy of that trust.”

“Hey, well, _you_ brought it up,” Sam mumbled, his dark cheeks flushing. “I mean, I served in the heyday of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I wasn’t gonna mention it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad that you did.”

“Why?” Sam asked shrewdly, but Steve wasn’t ready. Not now, maybe not ever.

“Because we’re friends. Good friends, and I’m glad you felt comfortable sharing this with me.”

“Don’t tell anyone else,” Steve was angered by how afraid the idea made Sam. “Please.”

“Of course not.”

_I love you, Stevie._

He heard Bucky’s voice in his head, mumbling against the sofa cushions as Steve reeled from the room, but he wasn’t sure if he’d made the memory up or not. He didn’t dwell on it.

They sat in silence for a while, finishing their beers. It was after midnight, but Steve couldn’t have slept even if he’d wanted to. He was afraid of what he’d see if he closed his eyes.

“So,” Sam broke the silence. “You and Bucky- ?”

“No,” Steve said too forcefully. The silence resumed.

“I should sleep,” Sam said eventually. The digital clock read 12:39 when Steve glanced at it. “It’s been a long couple days.”

“Fair enough. Goodnight, Sam.”

“‘Night, Steve.”

Steve sat in the kitchen for another twenty minutes after Sam’s departure. He stared at the last beer, before flicking the cap off and downing it in one gulp. He remembered just after he’d thought Bucky dead, drinking beer after beer, desperation growing. He’d never really believed he couldn’t ever get drunk again. Surely if he drank _enough-_

The bombed out London pub had supplied him with more than enough liquor to disprove his theory. Whiskey, gin, vodka, rum, bottles and bottles down the hatch until he’d had to accept it. He couldn’t numb himself to this pain. Bucky was dead. He was dead, and Steve would never see him again. Never hear his laugh, never feel his hand on his shoulder, never-

Peggy had found him, saved him from his despondency, at least momentarily. _“Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice,”_ she’d admonished him. _“He damn well must have thought you were worth it.”_

But she hadn’t known, and he hadn’t known. They hadn’t known that all choice was being torn from Bucky forever. And, if he was still out there, did he- could he possibly- think that Steve was worth it now?

He thought about Sam and Riley. They’d deserved better. Just like Bucky had. Did.

Steve gathered up the empty bottles and put them in the recycling. He threw away the empty pizza boxes. He made sure there was no mess on the countertop. Then he went to his room.

When he opened his laptop and refreshed his email, there was another message from _Natalia Romanova._ He stared at it for a long time. Then he deleted it, subduing the panic in his chest when he watched it disappear. It mattered what had been done to Bucky, of course it mattered, but he didn’t need to see any more of it. All he needed to do was get him back.

_What will you do then? Will you take him in your arms? Will you- ?_

Steve didn’t know. He didn’t. His entire worldview was askew, his identity shattered, and he didn’t _want_ to compare it to the tortures Bucky had suffered, but he couldn’t help it. He didn’t know who he was anymore. He didn’t know what Bucky had meant, what he still meant, to him.

He jerked himself off into one of his old socks, and this time he thought of Bucky, just to see what would happen. He imagined that night in 1934, if a drunken Bucky had gotten off the sofa and come into Steve’s room. He would have touched Steve with the same confidence as he ever had with a girl. They would have kissed, hands fumbling over each other. Bucky's big hand would have wrapped around Steve’s cock, and Steve would have moaned and thrust into his friend’s fist.  _“Come on, Stevie, give it up for me.”_ And, yes, Steve would, he would for Bucky. He’d never had anyone touch him like this, man or woman, but with Bucky it would be right, it would be _perfect-_

Steve came with a grunt, shooting ropes of come into the sock. He didn’t know what it meant. Or, he acknowledged to himself after he’d cleaned up and gotten into his bed, he didn’t _want_ to know what it meant, but deep down, he knew.

_Come back to me, Bucky. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it before. Come back to me, and we’ll make up for lost time. Please._

That night he dreamed of guilt and regret. Of screams, and blank eyes that should have been full of life.


	8. Interlude: Bucharest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I wasn't planning on Bucky making an appearance yet, but he was rattling around in my brain and wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote him. He and Steve still won't see each other for a bit, and I will return to Steve's POV after this, but here's Part 1 of Bucky's Interlude)

* * *

HYDRA’s prized Asset recovered memories quickly after the failed mission on the helicarrier. So quickly that they became overwhelming, and, after arriving at one of the last viable HYDRA safe houses in Romania, he began to chronicle them dutifully in a notebook, just to get them out of his head. He wrote them with a fountain pen, in thick black ink that couldn’t be erased. He was terrified that he’d lose them again, forever this time, and it was his responsibility to remember the things he’d done, the people he’d killed. Even if part of him longed once more to be a blank slate. The selfish, calculating part of him that he was afraid of, that whispered to him about solutions to his crushing guilt and despair. The part that told him to wait in the safe house for any remaining HYDRA operatives to find him and take him to that cold, painful place he considered _home._ The part that would have walked willingly to the Chair, strapped himself in, and applied that torturous apparatus to his own skull.

The dreams started immediately, whenever he forced himself to sleep. He didn’t need much sleep, but whatever tiny part of him remained that was still human required at least four hours per forty-eight hour cycle. There were memories in his dreams, exaggerated by his subconscious, but he didn’t write those down. When he was dreaming, he wasn’t sure if what he saw and felt was real. Not like the certainty he had in what he remembered when he was awake. It made him miss cryo, which was conflicting, but the deep, dark sleep of cryo tantalized him. There’d been no dreams in cryo.

He had no exact dates for most of his true memories, except some of his higher-profile assassinations, so he categorized them by the dates he’d reclaimed them. The first page bore the heading _April 13, 2014_ \- underneath the _13_ _апреля_ _2014_ he’d written automatically, then savagely crossed out- and was filled with information he’d gleaned from the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian, two days prior to his arrival in Bucharest. They weren’t his own memories, not necessarily, but he made sure only to write down the facts that had resonated with him somehow. That proved a difficult task, since he remembered _everything_ he’d seen at the museum. It was a skill that had been programmed into him, although he had an acute sense that he’d always been a good learner, in the nebulous _before._ Then again, maybe that sense was nothing but the influence of what he’d read in the Bucky Barnes Memorial section of the larger Captain America exhibit. _“An excellent athlete who also excelled in the classroom,”_ the somber black wall had eulogized Sergeant Barnes in white script. _“Captured by HYDRA troops… Barnes endured long periods of isolation, depravation and torture. But his will was strong.”_

 **_Not strong enough, apparently. They broke him eventually. Depraved and deprived him into_ ** _you._

Humor wasn’t something HYDRA had needed him to have, so he hadn’t, and it took him by surprise when it flared up inside him. He grinned idiotically at his own disturbed joke while he wrote the words down in looping cursive with his right hand, and the movement of the muscles in his face was disturbingly unfamiliar. He hadn’t smiled that big since- since-

_Moscow, the very beginning of 2009. A hit in the middle of the day, to “make a point” his handler had told him. Not that he’d asked. The secondary target was only a few years younger than his cryogenically preserved body, a journalist, her dark hair cut shorter than his. She eyed him warily out of the corner of her vision as she walked by the bench he was sitting on. He was dressed in civilian clothing, a heavy coat, hair hidden underneath a wool hat, hands hidden under leather gloves, and he smiled at her to diffuse her accurate suspicions. He knew the effect his face had on people, even if he didn’t understand exactly why, and he used it as a weapon as much as he used the rest of his body. It was as much a weapon as the Vul he used to shoot her companion, the primary target, in the back of the head, after his smile produced the desired result and she smiled back at him and turned her face, giving him the opportunity to silently stand and stride up behind them. She didn’t have a chance to look at him again before he put a bullet in the back of her head, too. Her body joined the lawyer’s in the dirty snow by the subway entrance, and he was two blocks away before the first scream of panicked discovery found him. Mission accomplished, and he was proud, anticipating the “Well done, Soldier,” he craved before they gave him a new mission or put him back to sleep-_

No, but that couldn’t count as his last smile, calculated and deceitful as it had been. When was the last time he- _Bucky-_ had _really_ smiled?

 _Austrian Alps, the very beginning of 1945. He was about to zip-line onto a goddamn moving train, and, fuck, he was terrified, but Steve- Steve had asked Bucky to come with him, and he never could say no to Steve. Not when they were kids, and definitely not now, when he had to show Steve-the-goddamn-_ **_superhero_ ** _that he could still keep up with him. Steve was as big as he was now, and a hell-of-a-lot stronger (understatement), but he wasn’t going to let Steve outdo him. He’d always been the strong one, the one who’d looked out for Steve, who’d finished the fights Steve couldn’t (which had been most of them). He needed Steve to need him still. He needed-_

**_“Remember when I made you ride the Cyclone on Coney Island?”_ **

_This mission was so much more than a silly wooden roller coaster, but the memory seemed applicable regardless. Steve looked at him fondly, eyes twinkling with amused recollection, and Bucky’s heart soared._

**_“Yeah, and I threw up?”_ **

_It had been a whopping twenty-five cents to ride, but worth it. For him, anyway, fourteen years old and yelling his lungs out in delighted fear with every rattling twist, turn, rise, and fall. He’d looked at Steve a few times, making sure he was okay, hoping he was having as much fun. Steve had been sitting next to him, pressed into his side, and it had given him such a thrill to have Steve so close. He’d wanted Steve to feel that same thrill, but Steve had been so pale, paler than usual. “White as a sheet,” as Winifred Barnes would have said. Steve’s thin hands had clutched at the lap bar until his knuckles were bloodless, shaking, eyes clenched firmly shut, and he’d had to resist the powerful urge to throw an arm around Steve and hold him tightly. It wouldn’t have been appropriate, and Steve would have been outraged at the perceived slight, the acknowledgment of weakness, even if Bucky wouldn’t have meant it as slight, far from it, but he wouldn’t have been able to explain-_

**_“This isn’t payback, is it?”_ **

_Steve had admirably held it in until after they’d exited the Cyclone, staggering to the nearest silver trash can and puking up the five-cent hot dog and root beer he’d unwisely consumed before the ride. Bucky had felt helpless as he’d watched, guilty for pressuring Steve to ride with him, even though he’d known that Steve would have insisted on taking the roller coaster’s challenge regardless. He’d impotently rubbed Steve’s back at first as the smaller boy retched, but Steve had wriggled awkwardly to swat him away. That was his Stevie, strong and proud. His stubborn little idiot. “I gotta go home, Bucky,” Steve had admitted once he’d finished retching. He’d looked shockingly ill, the paleness of his sharp face tinged with green. “I gotta go home.” And so he’d helped Steve, arm around his shoulder,_ **_needed_ ** _as they’d paid another nickel apiece to hop the CI &B line home- _

**_“Now why would I do that?”_**    

_Steve smirked at him, eyebrow lifted, and Bucky wanted to kiss him. It wasn’t a new impulse, but it took him by surprise every time it happened. He couldn’t kiss Steve, not without asking first, and he wouldn’t be able to bear the disgust he knew would flicker over Steve’s face at the very idea. He couldn’t kiss him, so he smiled an affectionate, cockeyed smile at his friend, and prepared himself for the mission at hand-_

His last real smile, over sixty-nine years ago. The absolute tragedy of that would be mind-boggling if he allowed himself to think about it too hard, so he didn’t. Instead, he emotionally disconnected himself from the memories and wrote them down.

As the days went by, and three frustrating sleep cycles passed, one notebook became two, then three. The crossed out incidents where he’d slipped into Cyrillic became fewer and fewer. Surprisingly, the memories that came to him most sharply were of the things that had happened _after_ the invasive brainwashing had begun in earnest. They were the most quantifiable and linear memories, even if they sometimes featured an improbable noise, like somebody screaming underwater. In them he was usually strapped to a table, or, later, in the Chair, bright lights overhead, with something clenched between his teeth while a parade of doctors- as nameless to him now as he’d been to both them and himself at the time- poked and prodded at him.

He remembered the pain from that time most of all. There had always been pain, and there had always been someone there to remind him that the pain was necessary for the greater good. He remembered how comforting that had been, how it had made the agony bearable when he’d had nothing else to hold onto. He’d wanted to be good, to be useful, to make the world a safer place. If the only cost for that was his pain, who was he in the grand scheme of things to withhold it?

 _Was that ever even your own thought? Or was it_ **_them?_ **

**_(Them, them, always them)_ **

_Damn right. You were never_ **_that_ ** _good, not on your own volition._

He remembered his victims while in the service of HYDRA. All of their faces, if not all of their names. Journalists, politicians, lawyers, doctors, activists, scientists. Sometimes members of their families, or random bystanders who had unwittingly witnessed the death of his target. _“No witnesses,”_ had been a standard order, and he’d always made sure to obey it. He’d known the consequences for failure, the pain that had been promised him, and, besides, he’d wanted to be _good._ Someone had always told him how good he’d been while they’d loaded him into the HYDRA transport and taken him home. Someone else had always told him how good he’d been while they’d done maintenance on his left arm, checked his vitals, and strapped him in the Chair to take away the memories of screaming faces and cooling bodies.

 _Fucking weak, pathetic_ **_fool._ ** _You’re not_ **_good._ ** _You never were._

It was harder for him to disconnect from the faces, especially the ones he’d executed at close range, but he managed, cognizant that there was no mind wipe forthcoming to take away the guilt. He dreaded the day he’d have to fully deal with that guilt. He knew it would come someday. Someday, but not today.

The other memories- the things that had happened when he’d been that bright-eyed, baby-faced young man called _James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes,_ immortalized forever as a war hero in a blue jacket by Captain America’s side at the Smithsonian- those things were more elusive to him. It took weeks after arriving at the safe house for that name to even register as _his._ He had no name. He was _Soldier,_ _Asset,_ but not _Bucky._ It was foreign, wrong, and he chafed against it. So much so that he initially tried out variations on the full version of his birth name. _James, Jim, Jimmy,_ but they felt even worse to him then _Bucky._ So, Bucky it was. Bucky, _Bucky,_ **_Bucky._** Strange, _bad,_ **_wrong._** He rarely looked into the cloudy little mirror above the bathroom sink, but every morning he made a point to stare at that hated reflection of the face that didn’t register as his.

_Who are you?_

**_Bucky._ **

_No._

He’d shrug and go about his day, repeating the exercise the following morning.

_Who are you?_

**_Bucky. I’m Bucky._ **

_No, no,_ **_no._ **

It was at least two weeks of _strange, bad, wrong,_ but one day, a regular day in his new routine of existence, he woke up, looked in the mirror, and saw _Bucky._

_Who are you?_

**_I’m Bucky._ **

_Well, of course you are. You’re also a_ **_mess,_ ** _when’s the last time you showered?_

That was the day the dichotomy between the Soldier and Bucky truly began for him. They were like two separate entities, entwined, at war. Both him, and yet not him. Both of them making up the thing- _man, person-_ he now was, whoever that was. It wasn’t a quantifiable dichotomy. Not _dissociative identity disorder_ or any of the other diagnoses he found on the internet. He knew there was something wrong with him, with his mind. How could there _not_ be? But he had no word for it.

He got around to hooking up the computer system during week three in the safe house, once he was sure that neither HYDRA nor any of the international governments the Soldier- _he-_ had pissed off were coming for him. Or, if they were, he’d welcome them. He’d either run, or fight, or die, or be dragged back to Siberia- _and maybe this time they’d be able to wipe every trace of_ **_Bucky_ ** _away, and that idea was simultaneously horrifying and freeing-_ but he wanted to know what was going on in the world outside, even if he wasn’t ready to interact with it directly, he wanted to see.

_No, you want to see if Steve’s okay._

It was harder to dissociate from his thoughts of Steve. After hooking up the computer, he’d used Google to look up _Captain America._ Computers weren’t new to him, he’d been taught to use modern technology the same way he’d been taught the thirty languages he knew, and the evolving forms of weapons and combat training, and everything else since 1945. They’d stuffed it into his brain whenever they’d woken him up, wiping it all away when he’d returned with blood on his hands and in his brain. They’d washed away the blood, the guilt and horror, every time, only giving him back the skills and information he’d needed for his mission when they’d woken him once more. Until they’d sent him after Steve, and he’d _remembered._ He’d remembered because of Steve, and now he’d never be able to _forget_ because of him either, since Steve had crippled HYDRA by taking down S.H.I.E.L.D. It made Bucky _hate_ him a little.

 **_You_ ** _let them do this to me, and now you’ve taken away my opportunity to forget it!_

Ungracious, yes, and distressing for the implications of his overall mental state, but he couldn’t shut it off.

Steve seemed to be doing alright for himself, taking up the mantle of Captain America here in the future with the superhero team known as the Avengers. He’d been found in 2012, frozen in the Arctic, after being presumed dead in March of 1945 when he’d flown a HYDRA plane carrying bombs into the ocean, so soon after Bucky’s own presumed death. He’d read all that at the Smithsonian, but now it made him _feel._ That stubborn, self-sacrificing, little _idiot._ Steve could be so smart, but also so goddamn stupid. If Bucky had been there, that shit would most definitely _not_ have gone down-

God help him, he loved that man, or he had. His idiotic, not-so-little-now Stevie-

_No, not yours. Never yours. Not then, and especially not now. Not after-_

He took a deep breath, calming himself, disconnecting. His right hand had drifted involuntarily between his legs with his thoughts. He was wearing jeans and a tan sweatshirt he’d found at a thrift shop in America, before he’d gone to the museum, and the part of him that was Bucky felt horror at the emptiness his hand felt underneath the rough denim, at the _lack,_ and the part that was the Soldier clenched his metal fist against the new swell of emotion. Whoever he was now stabilized, removed his right hand, and unclenched the fist with its familiar mechanical whirs and clicks. He stood from the computer, staring at the arm HYDRA had given him as he started pacing agitatedly from one side of the room to the other. He bent and straightened it, rotated its shoulder, wiggled its fingers. So lifelike, but it was cold, and hard, and insensate.

 _Like you. Like you_ **_should_ ** _be._

He dropped the arm to his side as he continued his pacing, and his mouth twitched with self-loathing. He had to accept it. He wasn’t a man, certainly not a human being, and barely even a thing. He had nothing to offer Steve, even if he’d wanted anything from Bucky, and nothing to offer anyone else either. Not even HYDRA seemed to want him back. He _was_ nothing. Nothing, nothing, _nothing._

**_You’re nothing._ **


	9. Interlude: Bucharest, Part 2

* * *

Time passed, and his thoughts and memories became more and more coherent. He was now on his sixth notebook, the safe house’s stash of traditional writing materials seemingly as extensive as its supply of food, water, and weapons, and the tops of the pages were marked with dates in the final days of June. Like all the other notebooks, this one was made of plain brown leather, but it was something about this one in particular that triggered memories of that _other_ notebook. The one that had lived with him in the cold, painful place, bound in red leather, ornamented with a star. The star that was a symbol of _him_ as much as the Communist Revolution it had originally exemplified to the Soviet branch of HYDRA where he’d ended up.

It took him months, still holed up in the prison of the safe house and long after he’d finally acknowledged his name as _Bucky,_ to start truly thinking of himself as _he._ He’d been an _it_ for so long. Even when the HYDRA leaders and operatives had called him _he,_ they’d really meant _it._ The Soldier had known that, in his cold, clinical way, and now Bucky knew it, too. HYDRA had made sure to cut out the parts of him that made him _him,_ with scalpels and blows, with electrodes and words. Part of him, the part that had been Bucky, raged and grieved about that, but the part of him that had been the Soldier accepted it. Whoever he was now- more Bucky than Soldier, but still not quite Bucky- existed in a limbo between the two. He yearned for the man he’d been, but he understood that he would never be that again. The protective instincts he’d had, his humor and passion, and the lust he’d once felt, those were no more. He had the memories of them, sometimes he had muted flashes of them, and he wanted to feel them again fully, but he knew they were lost to him. If he didn’t accept that, he wouldn’t be able to go on.

He’d thought about that many times. Sticking a gun in his mouth, ending this shadowy half-existence in a roaring rush. The thought would creep up on him, and it was hard to argue with it. Nobody would miss him. Many people would celebrate the death of the Winter Soldier. The world knew his identity, he’d seen online. When HYDRA’s S.H.I.E.L.D. mask had slipped, all their files had been released, including some of the information on its Assets. He wasn’t the only weaponized human HYDRA had created, he wasn’t even the only component of the Winter Soldier program, but he was the most notorious one. He knew he shouldn’t feel pride at that, but he did. At least, the Soldier did. The thought made _Bucky_ sick to his stomach, his real name out there with a list of his known kills. Not all of them, thankfully. Not even close to all of them. That wasn’t the only absence of information, however. Also missing were the seventy years of torture and mind control. Anyone who read his name by his list of victims would think he had willingly ended their lives. That he had betrayed Steve, defected to HYDRA by choice, and allowed them to do everything they’d done to him.

Sometimes it felt like he _had._ He was cognizant that none of it had been his fault, but he still felt as if it was. He should have been better. Stronger. If he had, none of it would have happened. His victims would have lived, and he would have lived, too, whole and happy. It made him angry. He knew he should be angriest at HYDRA- at Zola and M and Karpov and others whose names he’d never know- but he wasn’t. He was angriest at himself, and understanding that he _shouldn’t_ be only made him angrier with himself. A vicious cycle that was easier to disconnect from then try to process fully.

He wondered if they’d changed his memorial at the Smithsonian yet. Or maybe they’d taken it down altogether. HYDRA war criminals had no place next to a hero like Captain America.

He didn’t look that up. The idea was almost worse than the screams in his head or the faces from his riflescope that flashed behind his eyes when he closed them. But at least- at least the Winter Soldier’s lack of balls wasn’t public knowledge.

 _You’re disgusting. Selfish. Weak._ **_Kill yourself._ **   

Two things stopped him from eating a bullet every time the intrusive thought clawed its way out. His memories of Bucky’s- _his-_ childhood, with his devout Catholic mother. To kill himself would condemn his soul to Hell. As laughable as he found it that he could think himself capable of making it into Heaven after all he’d done, he couldn’t shake the deeply ingrained deterrent. It comforted him, in a twisted sort of way, that HYDRA hadn’t been able to take the foundations of his upbringing from him.

The other reason he didn’t kill himself was Steve. Because, he quickly realized, he was wrong about no one missing him. Steve would. That stubborn idiot was definitely looking for him right now. Steve had put a crack in the dam of Bucky’s memories, just by saying his old name on a street in Washington D.C., and then he’d refused to fight back against the Winter Soldier on the helicarrier, once it had been disabled and was crashing down into the Potomac. It had only taken Steve nine words. Nine words, first spoken by Bucky himself back in 1936, had opened the floodgates completely and brought out enough of Bucky to make the Soldier rescue his unconscious target from the river and leave him alive on its banks. His first failed mission.

 _It’s not the end of the line, Stevie. Not yet._   

He’d already started remembering the streets of Brooklyn as a kid. His little sisters and brother. Steve by his side. He remembered Steve best of all. Steve’s small, beautiful face, bruised and bloodied from some stupid fight he’d been too stubborn to run away from. Steve’s larger face, also beautiful in a different way, bruised and bloodied from some Nazi attack he’d been too stubborn to concede. Steve’s tired face, still beautiful, bruised and bloodied from the damage Bucky’s own hands had wrought on his best friend who’d been too stubborn and too loyal to fight back against the Soldier’s furious onslaught. Thank God, he’d remembered eventually. Remembered enough to know that he was supposed to be the one who protected Steve. Patched him up. The one who was supposed to pull his beloved little idiot out of the fire. Bucky didn’t hurt Steve, he took care of Steve. The Soldier had been confused by that knowledge, conflicted, but Bucky hadn’t been. Bucky never had been when it came to Steve.

He’d loved Steve. Unequivocally, he’d been head-over-heels in love with Steve Rogers, probably from the day they’d met as children. That sort of thing hadn’t been acceptable back then. Hell, it barely was now, but when Bucky had first realized that he felt the same attraction to boys as he did girls, he’d known he could never have that part of himself. So he’d overcompensated, overplaying his love for women. It wasn’t that he didn’t- _hadn’t-_ liked women, because he had. Soft skin and plump legs, the curve of their hips and the weight of their breasts in the palm of his hand. The way they’d felt when he was between their legs with his tongue, his fingers, or his cock, warm and wet. He’d liked all of it. It just hadn’t been the only thing he’d liked. He’d also liked broad shoulders and stubbled cheeks. Tantalizing bulges between muscled thighs. But he hadn’t been allowed to like those things, so he’d tried not to. He’d tried so hard, and he’d mostly succeeded. Except with Steve. Steve had continuously knocked him for a loop, love and lust catching him at random moments when he looked at his passionate friend, and Bucky had adored it. He’d known he could never have Steve completely, not the way he’d wanted him, but they’d always been so close it almost hadn’t mattered. Almost.

It disturbed him how those memories- the memories of _Bucky,_ and how he’d felt about Steve- caused him more distress than the memories of his metal hand crushing necks or his flesh hand pulling triggers. It made him despise himself all the more. How selfish he was. How his own pain mattered more to him than the pain of the Soldier’s- _his-_ victims.

_You were always a selfish coward._

That was true. He’d always been a follower, when he wasn’t running away. It wasn’t so surprising how easily HYDRA had taken control of his mind, really. Barely over a year, and he’d been turned into their perfect weapon. So much for his alleged strong will.

Those memories came to him last of all. That period between Bucky and the Soldier, when HYDRA had broken him and turned him into what he was now. They were the most traumatic of his memories, so he understood why his mind had been slower to accept them. He remembered his fall from the train in exquisitely agonizing detail-

 _-his utter terror when he’d failed to grab Steve’s hand segueing into dull acceptance that this was the way he was going to die. The first time he’d accepted his impending death in this war he’d been strapped to a table back in that Nazi factory, before the newly-minted goddamn superhero version of Steve had saved him. After that he’d been sure, foolishly he knew, but still_ **_sure,_ ** _that he would make it out of the war alive, in one piece, ready to go home from performing his duty for God and Country. He would have met a nice girl, settled down, started a career, had a couple kids. He would have-_

_But there was no Captain America to save him this time, and he should have been smart enough not to mistake his own arrogant hopes for reality._

_When the rush of the wind in his ears receded, long after he’d lost the breath for screaming, there was pain, and cold, and darkness and- and he should be dead. Why the hell wasn’t he dead?_

_He was aware of movement. Something was gripping his right forearm, pulling him along the snowy ground. He tried to resist, tried to swat at the unknown entity with his left arm, but something was wrong. The pain that permeated his body concentrated sharply in his left shoulder and he looked with muted horror at the bloody stump where his arm should have been. He couldn’t focus on anything but the pain, and the_ **_wrongness_** _of it._

_He didn’t know how long he was dragged, staring dumbly at the crimson gore trailing in his wake, until there were voices speaking foreign languages somewhere above his head in the frosty air._

**_“He’s American,”_** _a voice said in strangely accented German that Bucky struggled to follow._ **_“I saw him fall off the mountain.”_**

_Another German voice scoffed at that. There was some conversation that Bucky quickly lost, followed by his arm being jostled, and then the movement started up again._

**_“_** ** _Proslavlyat'_** ** _HYDRA,”_** _the first voice said in a new language, sounding farther away._

 ** _“_** ** _Hail_** ** _HYDRA,”_** _agreed the second voice smoothly in German over Bucky’s head. He was the one now dragging Bucky by his remaining arm._

_This was bad, monumentally bad, but after the all-consuming fear of falling to his death, his mind refused to react with any emotion other than slight uneasiness. He was numb to the horror._

_He should be dead, but he wasn’t. He’d lost his arm, which meant he’d be sent home, but Steve was a friend of Howard Stark himself. The man was building a flying car, for God’s sake, surely he could get some sort of working prosthesis for Captain America’s best friend. And, yeah, he’d been captured by HYDRA, but how long would that last? Steve would save him. Steve, Dum Dum, Gabe, Jim, Monty, and Jacques would come for him, guns blazing. And, whoo boy, they’d never let him hear the end of it, either, and he’d pretend to let it bother him, but he’d be too grateful to really care-_

How foolish he’d been, full of the confidence, and the arrogance, of youth. Full of hope. How foolish he’d been, when he was Bucky.

_When you had balls._

He remembered that, too. They’d kept him in isolation for months, stitching up what remained of his left arm and feeding him, once they’d realized he was _“one of Zola’s boys.”_ The HYDRA doctor had branded him when he’d experimented on him in Austria, a tiny mark behind his knee that everyone had missed, including himself. But the HYDRA soldiers had recognized it, and kept him alive in case Arnim Zola wanted more from him someday. He wondered if they’d had any idea what Zola would do to him. He wished they’d just killed him then.

He’d originally thought the castration was another degradation, another blow to his identity. The enigmatic Mr. M, HYDRA’s expert in breaking a man’s will, had embraced that aspect of it, but it had also served another purpose. The super-soldier serum that Dr. Zola had made hadn’t been as effective as the one made by Steve’s Dr. Erskine. In order for Zola’s to work at maximum efficiency, the body had to be purged of its natural testosterone, as well as some other hormones and natural steroids. His healing had accelerated immediately, but not the enhanced strength that the serum should have given him as well. So they’d cut off his balls, and taken out his adrenal glands, and he’d been turned into the same kind of super-strong specimen that Steve was.

It was funny, in a twisted way, how jealous he’d initially been of Steve’s newfound strength. Not that he’d begrudged Steve himself. On the contrary, he’d been overjoyed that Steve was healthy and happy. No more weakness, trouble eating, or breathing problems. He’d also, shallowly, selfishly, been attracted to the handsome, muscled _Sheik_ that Steve had become. But then- then he hadn’t been the only one looking at Steve. Everyone had. The women had barely glanced at Bucky when he’d stood next to Steve, and that had been such a drastic change from before that it had rankled him. The men hadn’t looked at him either, they’d been too awed and intimidated by Captain America. _That_ was what had made Bucky jealous. Steve had suddenly been a hot commodity, and where had that left Bucky? Bucky, who had loved Steve _first._ Who had been the strong one, who’d been _Steve’s_ hero. What could he possibly be to Steve now?

All of that was funny, because after his rescue by the new-and-improved Steve Rogers, the potential for super-soldier status had been inside Bucky all along. And all it had cost to unlock it was his manhood. Now- now he could bend iron or break someone’s femur with his bare hands, but he’d never care about the way women or men looked at him when he did, because he had nothing to give them in return.

No, that was wrong. He did care, but not in the same way he once had. He cared, but only because he was ashamed of what he lacked.

The HYDRA guards hadn’t told him what they were going to do when they’d dragged him from his cell that day. They’d taken him to an infirmary-type room, had stripped him naked as he’d fought them, strapped him to a gurney, shoved a leather strap between his teeth, hosed him down as he’d struggled against the restraints, and then shaved him all over. He still hadn’t realized what was going to happen at that point. Not when he’d seen Zola for the first time since Austria, or the man he would later come to know as Mr. M, or the doctor that had wheeled a stool and a rolling metal tray of sinister instruments to the end of the gurney. Not when that doctor had used a piece of medical tape to secure his cock to his upper thigh, and had then made a mark in the center of his scrotum with a strange pen. When the scalpel had made its first slice into that soft skin, he’d started to suspect, utterly shocked, but it hadn’t been until the doctor had held his severed testicles in front of his eyes, the pain from their removal burning between his thighs, that he’d finally accepted what had been done to him, and all that it had implied.

They’d recorded his castration, had made him watch it over and over again, whenever he’d acted up. And he _had_ fought back, even after they'd taken his balls. He’d been desperate to prove he was still a man, still strong and capable. Still able to stand next to Steve when he inevitably came for him, despite HYDRA’s insistence that Steve was dead. Despite the false propaganda videos they’d made him watch as often as the one of his castration. Bucky hadn’t believed them. He couldn’t have believed them, because if he had, it would have meant the death of his last shred of hope.

Soon after they’d taken his balls, they’d taken his adrenal glands. He’d been knocked out for that procedure, had woken in his cell in immense pain, but that operation hadn’t had the same implications as the first, so it had only bothered him insofar as it had been another example of their control over his body. It hadn’t made him less of a man, not like the first operation, and even that hadn’t taken everything from him. He’d been surprised when he’d woken up hard a few days after the first surgery, and, with morbid curiosity, he’d touched himself to completion. The sensation had been different, although he couldn’t have described exactly why, and his emission had been thin and clear, but it had been pleasurable, and he’d thought maybe- _maybe-_

Then they’d taken the use of his cock from him, and the remainder of his self-image had crumbled. He’d realized how foolish he’d been. Steve would come for him, but what would he find? He wouldn’t have been able to stand next to Steve as an equal anymore. He would never have had Steve the way he’d wanted, or anyone else for that matter. Never.

He’d stopped eating for over a month after that. It had been a suicide attempt, but it had also been a way to show HYDRA that they couldn’t control him completely. They’d wanted him stronger, so he’d tried to make himself weaker. All their attempts to force-feed him had proven fruitless. He’d felt himself dying, and he’d welcomed it. Steve would have mourned, but he’d get over it. He had his newfound health, and his fame, and Peggy. He hadn’t needed Bucky, especially not after what HYDRA had done to him.

Two HYDRA guards, whose names Bucky hadn’t known or couldn’t recall, had taken the last shred of his autonomy from him. One of them had raped him while the other had held him down and told him how the entire thing was his own fault. Bucky supposed it had been. If he’d just kept his stupid mouth shut- but he hadn’t.

He’d started eating after that. He’d wanted to be able to fight those men off if they tried to assault him again.

He remembered killing them both, the day the Soldier had been born. He’d killed them both, but he hadn’t killed them for himself. Like everything else in his goddamned life, it had been for Steve. He’d killed them for Steve, or so he’d thought in the moment. He also remembered killing the man he’d been tricked into seeing as Steve, after he’d kissed him for the first, glorious time. But that hadn’t been real, he knew that now. He’d never had Steve, and he never would. Even if Steve could ever want him back, that part of him was lost forever. Not just the lust, the sex, but that ability to love.

He could barely remember what it had been like to feel his balls hanging between his thighs, although he could remember the last time he’d come with them there- a hurried masturbation session in the woods, the day before the train. The last time he’d had a partner, well _partners,_ had been Bonnie and Connie, the girls he’d taken with Steve to the Modern Marvels Pavilion the night before he’d shipped off to England. Where he’d seen Howard Stark, and that amazing, temporarily flying car. He never would have imagined that he’d someday get to _meet_ Stark, thanks to Steve-

 _You also never would have imagined that you’d someday be the one to_ **_kill_ ** _Stark, bash his head against the side of a non-flying car, over and over again until he stopped breathing, and then go to the other side of the car to deal with his wife because_ **_no witnesses-_ **

After Steve had ditched them to attempt yet another Army enlistment, one that had proven successful as it had turned out, Bucky had taken Bonnie and Connie dancing. He’d been hurt by Steve’s abandonment. Even when the girls had come back with him to his apartment later that night, telling him how brave he was and how much they’d wanted to show their gratitude for his military service, he’d wished Steve were there-

_Like he would have been there with you. Like he would have loved you the way you wanted him to._

The Soldier berated him for his thoughts. It didn’t matter what Bucky had once wanted, had once been, all that mattered was the _now._ Acceptance of the things that were immutable. Survival in the face of them. Whoever he was now had to admit the Soldier had a point.

Regardless of his inner turmoil, all of him agreed that he had to stay hidden in the safe house until a clear course of action presented itself.

All of him also agreed that he could never face Steve again.


	10. Interlude: Bucharest, Final Part

* * *

The second-to-last page of his current notebook, the eleventh, was headed _August 24, 2014_ when Bucky ventured out of the confines of the safe house for the first time since his arrival. He was aware that he was breaking his resolve not to leave until he had a plan, but planning was difficult for him. He lived one day at a time, often one hour at a time, just surviving. He justified this excursion to himself because this was the last empty notebook available to him. In truth, he desperately wanted to explore. To walk farther than one end of the room to the other. To buy groceries, eat something, anything, other than one of those godawful Russian IRP’s.

Food had been difficult for the first few months, while his digestive system recalibrated itself from decades of cryo, but once he could eat normally again he found himself eating everything in sight. He could easily consume a week’s worth of rations in a day, as disgusting and monotonous as the canned beef, buckwheat, and crackers were. He’d begun to gain weight, but not in ways that denoted softness. He bulked up, muscles expanding, and he wondered if he could even get fat anymore. It became a kind of game to see if he could. No luck so far.

He still did basic exercises to keep his body ready for whatever fight might be on the horizon. Push-ups, crunches, planks, pull-ups, lunges, but nothing terribly intensive. Not like the hours of training HYDRA had used to make him do, both before and after cryo, to keep his body in optimal condition.

After the initial swell of memories had tapered off, he began to notice things about his body that hadn’t registered before. As the Soldier, they’d been facts that he’d accepted and incorporated into his mission performances, but as- _as Bucky, you’re Bucky-_ as Bucky he processed them differently.

He remembered when he’d been covered in hair, on his chest, arms, groin, and legs. That was all gone, now he was covered in scars instead. That stupid little “Z” behind his right knee. Scars from the modifying surgeries HYDRA had performed on him, between his legs, on his back, and on his left shoulder where they’d attached his prosthetic arm. Marks from injuries he’d received on missions after that, a gunshot on his right shoulder, a knife wound in his abdomen, the spot on his left thigh where one of the other, stronger, Winter Soldiers had broken the bone straight through the skin during a training exercise-

_They used you to kill Howard and his wife to get the serum to create your betters, who got to keep their balls, and who they then used you to train-_

He wondered if those other Soldiers were still alive. The last he’d seen of them, he was being dragged from his cryo chamber to the Chair and they were all blissfully asleep in their own cold chambers. They may have been better, but he’d been under HYDRA’s control and they hadn’t. They’d _chosen_ this, been loyal to HYDRA, but the serum had made them more aggressive, and Karpov had ordered them frozen until the same mental controls could be placed on them as on the original Soldier-

 _Because he was the best, and he was proud of that. The other five were stronger, their bodies intact, but they weren’t obedient. They weren’t good. Not like him._ **_He’d_ ** _gotten this job, killing this Nick Fury and helping Pierce gain total control, of S.H.I.E.L.D., of HYDRA, of the world. “You are so good, Soldier,” they’d say as he was taken back to his chamber. “Such a good job,” and those other five would never get to hear that, and he was glad-_

If they were still alive, he should probably do something about that. If any remnants of HYDRA got their hands on them- if _anyone_ got their hands on them- they could unleash them on the unsuspecting world. That wouldn’t end well, for anybody.

 _You should do something about that, but you won’t. You're weak, selfish, a coward. You’re no hero. You’re_ **_not_ ** _good. You never were._

But disconnecting from his thoughts, feelings, and memories was second nature to him now. The muted anger passed quickly. He was getting better at it, and that should scare him, but it was such a relief. The impulse to kill himself was lessened. Even when he looked at the ruin of his body.

He sometimes wondered if Steve had scars. The Winter Soldiers made with Stark’s formula had such accelerated healing that they didn’t scar at all, but maybe Erskine’s formula had been more like Zola’s. Not that it mattered, but when Bucky thought about Steve, with dull longing in his chest, he wanted to picture him as he was, not the idealized images that he’d seen at the Smithsonian and online. Not Captain America, but Steve.

_You better hope he doesn’t scar, after the number you did on him in D.C. You better hope he doesn’t have those scars to remember you by._

He missed Steve. But he _couldn’t_ miss Steve.

When he finally stepped outside, all senses on high-alert for danger, Bucharest was uncomfortably humid. Summer clouds, fat with the promise of rain, hung overhead and he could hear the rumble of thunder in the distance.

His first impression of the city was _grey._ Grey sky, with the occasional peek of sunshine through clouds, and grey buildings. The communist influence could be seen in abandoned factories and neglected apartment blocks. He felt a strange solidarity with those buildings, subconsciously touching the bicep of his metal arm where Mr. M had emblazoned the Soviet star once they’d moved the Soldier to Siberia. He knew Bucky would be incensed at the blatantly un-American implications, the Soldier wouldn’t care, and whoever he was now- **_Bucky._ ** _You’re_ **_Bucky-_ ** had more pressing concerns. In truth, when things got bad, the star was inexplicably comforting. It was something bright and tangible to fixate on, and sometimes it stirred nostalgia in him-

 _-they couldn’t afford to shop at the “red star store” as little John called it, but both he and Ruthie had begged to go to the parade, and even Rebecca was excited, though she pretended she wasn’t. Bucky was excited also, but at sixteen he was far too old to show it. His mother and father weren’t going, they trusted him to look out for his younger sisters and brother, and Steve would be there with them, too. Bucky had never been to a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but he could remember his classmates talking about the first one, when he’d been seven and it had been called the Christmas Parade. He’d been jealous of their tales of elephants, lions, bears, and Santa Claus. Santa would be there this year, even though the elephants, lions, and bears had since been replaced by giant balloons, but that was actually_ **_more_ ** _exciting-_

It also reminded him of Steve. Steve had a star on the chest of his costume, and on his shield, and Bucky was starting to miss Steve so much it _hurt,_ the feeling poking through his emotional shields. He’d lost count of the times he’d picked up a phone and almost called the Avengers Hotline, the numbers embedded in his brain since the first time he’d read them on the website, an airbrushed picture of Steve in his uniform above them. It was only the thought of Steve seeing him, with all the horrible things Steve knew and all the worse things he could find out, that stopped him from dialing the numbers. He couldn’t look Steve in the eye again. He couldn’t stand next to him, as an equal, or as _anything._ And he couldn’t let Steve see him.

He’d been afraid of being recognized on the streets, but that fear proved groundless. No one seemed to give him a second glance as he walked by. He’d kept his hair long, even with the Soldier reminding him that cutting his hair would be wise, since he was identifiable by the shoulder-length mane. He liked his hair this way. It was familiar, and it gave him a curtain to hide behind. Besides, the hair on his head and face was all the hair he had left. He wasn’t sure if that was solely because he’d been castrated, or if HYDRA had done some other depilating procedure on him. Maybe it was both. Regardless, he liked the control he had over the hair that remained to him. He kept the hair on his head shoulder-length, and he shaved his face every so often, when his beard started to become unbearably heavy. It grew very slowly now.   

He discovered a farmer’s market just around the corner, and he found himself surrounded by brightly colored fruits and vegetables that Bucky was awed by, his experience with produce limited during the Depression. He used some of the lei HYDRA had stored in the safe house to buy green and yellow string beans, bright red tomatoes, a jar of pickles, several mici, and a bottle of palincă made from mashed plums and apricots. He was pretty sure he couldn’t get drunk anymore, just like Steve, a theory that proved correct when he drained the bottle that night and felt nothing, but he liked the taste, and the burn as the homemade liquor went down his throat.

He found that the hardest part about moving in the world was talking to people. For all the languages he knew, all the information he’d been given, actually holding a conversation proved a monumental feat. He hadn’t had to talk to someone on his own behalf since the overworked girl at the Smithsonian ticket counter, and there were so many international tourists there that she hadn’t even blinked when he remembered to switch from Russian to clipped English. Here, plenty of people spoke Russian, but Bucky rebelled against using it as his primary language. It took him weeks to shift to Romanian, but he did it. Romanian outside the safe house, and all his journals inside written in English. He still had a propensity to swear in Russian, but Bucky was otherwise pleased with his progress. Conversations were difficult, but he could communicate in vague pleasantries well enough, and he felt stupidly proud about that.

Being surrounded by people sometimes caught him off-guard. He could be walking down the street, already cognizant of his whereabouts and the civilians passing by, and then it would suddenly feel like they were converging on him, choking him, trying to hurt him. Every casual brush of a shoulder or touch of a hand during a transaction would feel as if it burned him, even through the gloves he wore to hide himself. He’d be convinced that everyone knew who he was, and they were going to hand him over, to the authorities, to HYDRA. Or, they were all HYDRA themselves, and they were coming to strap him down, wipe him, cut him, hurt him-

Whenever that happened, he would go back to the safe house immediately. If he couldn’t quell his panic, he might hurt someone. He might _kill_  someone, and he never wanted to do that again.

Occasionally, he’d catch someone looking at him with a different kind of interest. Usually women, but sometimes men as well. That interest almost scared him more than being recognized would, but it didn’t make him panic. He would give a kind smile, look away, and hastily leave.

_Sorry, darling. There’s nothing you want here._

Bucky got an old picture of Steve for his current notebook. A vintage Captain America trading card he’d found in the thrift store he got more journals from. It had been shoved in between cards of modern baseball players he didn’t recognize as he’d flipped through them with mild curiosity, the first familiar face sending his heart leaping into his chest when he’d realized who it was. Something to ground himself when the muffled screaming started in the back of his head or the nightmares overwhelmed him. A reminder of who he had been, and a comfort on his meager good days. It was a goofy image of Steve in that ridiculous Captain America uniform, hamming it up for the camera, saluting and smirking. Bucky knew Steve hadn’t chosen the outfit, but he’d grown to embody it, and Bucky had encouraged that. Steve had looked damn good in that uniform. And once Steve had been on the front lines with Bucky and the rest of the Commandos, he’d embraced the opportunity to stand out with the gaudy colors. A brightly colored bird, drawing attention away from his mate and chicks. _Look at me, shoot at me, look at me not at my men._ Bucky had seen right through that nonsense, had dressed as brightly as he dared in that blue jacket to take some of the pressure off Steve, but still, he’d let his friend take the brunt of the punishment.

 _Weak, selfish, coward,_ he let the words wash over him. They were true, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered to him now was survival, though if he thought too hard about the _why_ of that, he became distressed. So he didn’t think about it. He just survived.

He continued to visit the farmer’s market weekly, moving to the BILLA down the block when the outdoor market turned into a Christmas market that November, then closed for the remaining winter months. At the supermarket, he discovered modern junk food. His favorites were chocolate bars and potato chips, but he found that he didn’t care for modern soft drinks. The root beer he bought was so sweet, too sweet, nothing like the drinks he and Steve had shared on the Coney Island boardwalk.

He started picking up odd jobs at the beginning of January 2015. He didn’t want to use HYDRA’s money anymore. He’d join construction crews for a few days, enjoying working with his hands to create rather than destroy. It gave him pride, and something akin to happiness, to be able to forget who and what he was for an afternoon or two on a project. He’d help people move. He’d work in factories. Never any one thing for very long, but enough to save up his own money. Enough to rent his own apartment. It was on the opposite end of town from the safe house, but he still made his weekly treks to his favorite outdoor market. His apartment was on the top floor, corner, chosen for logistical value should he need to run or fight. Tiny, one room with an attached closet-sized bathroom. A real slum, but it was _his._ He used the pseudonym _Gheorghe_ _Hubbard_ on the lease. The Romanian version of his father's name and his mother's maiden name. Not creative at all.

 _It’s almost like you_ **_want_ ** _to be found._

 **_It’s almost like you want_ ** _Steve_ **_to find you._ **

He hadn’t looked up his family. He didn’t want to think about any of them knowing what he’d done, or what had been done to him. Surely they were all dead, or very close to it by now. In his father, mother, brother, and sister’s eyes, he’d died a hero. He’d died a man.

_Selfish. Coward._

He hadn’t taken much from the safe house. A few supplies- sleeping bags, rations, weapons, and gear that he’d packed into two different go-bags he’d hidden around the apartment in case he had to run. His primary bag, the one where he stored his old notebooks, was underneath the floorboards in the kitchen. The secondary one was smaller, underneath his bed. He took one more sleeping bag from the safe house, which he placed on the old bed frame and mattress he’d found at his favorite thrift store. The apartment had come with a refrigerator and range, but he’d provided himself with an old card table and folding chair for his meals, and a microwave for when he didn’t feel like cooking. Which was most of the time.

He was on his thirteenth notebook now. New memories came fewer and far between, but he sometimes journaled about his day if he found something interesting about it. He was doing that on the page marked _March 10, 2015_ when he realized it was his birthday. Ninety-eight years old. Trapped in the body of a twenty-nine year old, if his math concerning his cryo stasis was correct. A twenty-nine year old who had once been been a man, then a weapon, and now was-

_Nothing._

Did that make Steve older than him? That was strange to think about, but he supposed he’d gotten used to his younger, smaller friend becoming his younger, _bigger_ friend, so why not his _older,_ bigger friend?

No, not bigger. Not anymore. They were the same size now, and the old Bucky would have been pleased about that, but now he didn’t care. It was utterly meaningless. As meaningless as his birthday. He closed the notebook, leaving off in the middle of his description of the stray cat he’d fed in the park. It was stupid anyway. He shouldn’t be making connections with anyone, human or animal. He just needed to survive.

_And what exactly are you surviving for?_

He didn’t know. Or, more accurately, he didn’t want to know.

*

In May 2015 the world almost ended. Bucky was vague on the details, but many people seemed to be blaming the Avengers for the mass-murdering robot that had destroyed Sokovia. Particularly Tony Stark, the famous Iron Man, who looked so much like his father that Bucky couldn’t look at him very long without seeing the blood on Howard’s face when he’d killed him, that wide-eyed look of recognition etched permanently in death. Steve and Stark’s son seemed to be close friends, and Bucky used that as another reason not to pick up the phone. There was no need for him to ruin Steve’s life. Not any more than he’d already ruined it.

He also didn’t like his odds against Iron Man, Winter Soldier or not. He wasn’t _that_ strong. And if Steve sided against him, too, there was no way in hell Bucky would survive that. Physically, or emotionally.

_As if Steve would fight you. That’s the problem, remember?_

He was doing fine on his own. Surviving. Not hurting anyone. He never wanted to hurt anyone again. It was the only way he could justify his continued existence. He knew he was still a threat. If HYDRA found him, it would only take them ten words to turn him into a killing machine, and one Chair to wipe any residual humanity away after that. He knew better than to hope that the triggers wouldn’t work anymore. His body was still young, but at least he’d wised up a little bit. The world was cruel. Maybe it would have been better if that Ultron _had_ destroyed it.

*

At the beginning of July, he got an old TV and watched the celebration of Steve’s birthday in New York. Fireworks. He’d loved them as a child. The idea of standing under a cacophony of exploding lights now seemed abhorrent, but they were alright on the fuzzy little screen. He watched Steve smiling for the cameras, surrounded by his new friends, and it warmed what was left of his heart-

_They’d saved all of their sugar rations for a month, and Bucky had flirted extensively with a French farmgirl for the butter. Jim had gotten the flour, Dum Dum the salt, and Monty the currants (which he’d insisted were necessary). Gabe had baked it, Jacques had made the frosting, and it was all worth it for the look on Steve’s face the morning of July 4th, 1944._

_“That’s the only reason they made you Captain America, Stevie,” Bucky teased him. “They saw your birthday and said ‘Whoo boy, we got ourselves a winner!’”_

_“You’re a jerk, Buck,” but Steve was smiling. “Guess that means no cake for you. Dum Dum gets your share.”_

_“Thanks, Barnes!”_

_Dum Dum grinned, reaching for Bucky’s thin steel plate, and Bucky shielded the treat with his body while the rest of the Commandos laughed-_

He wasn’t sure if that was a new memory. He pried the kitchen floorboards up and flipped through his journals until he found that it wasn’t new. _July 2, 2014._ The memory was transcribed nearly identically to his current reminiscence, except for one small detail. The difference was, this time he’d remembered Steve’s smile.

*

It was the middle of November 2015, and his favorite market would soon be turning to holiday festivities. Bucky had just finished a job constructing extra booths for the market. He was sleeping more now, not because he needed to, but because he could. It made him feel more human. More like _Bucky,_ whom he could exclusively acknowledge as _him_ now. The Soldier had been silent for weeks. Maybe even months. The nightmares were still bad, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Nothing he didn’t deserve to handle.

His resolve not to reach out to Steve was faltering again. It always did, whenever things started getting good for him, and he reminded himself that he’d have to come back down again. Some horror, real or imagined, was always around the corner. HYDRA might find him, or the child of one of his victims would find him, seeking vengeance. That girl across the hall who’d been making eyes at him for a few months would recognize him, or make a pass at him, and he went back and forth on which of those would be worse. But _something_ bad. Something he didn’t need to drag Steve into.

His dreams that night were strange and incoherent, but not bad, and Steve was in them, and John, Rebecca, and Ruthie. They were sailing in paper canoes down the street in front of the Barnes’s apartment, the pavement having been turned to multicolored water, when Bucky was startled awake by the noise of two people entering his apartment. One of them had come through the window, the frigid breeze across his cheek alerting him while the tiny squeak of one of his many locks had alerted him to the smaller figure coming through his door. He could see them through the faint glow of the streetlights below his window, and he was rolling off the bed in an instant. He always slept in his clothes, shoes included, both because he knew this might happen and also because he had no heating. He grabbed the bag under the bed, regretting that he’d be losing his journals in the other bag, and sprang to his feet, heading towards the front door and the smaller intruder. The bigger intruder was quicker than he’d anticipated, however, and he felt himself being pulled backwards by the bag he’d swung over his arm. He let it go. It wasn’t a necessity. He could survive without it. There was money in his pocket, and fake ID’s. He’d go somewhere else, start over-

Whoever was behind him hit him over the head with something as the bag fell to the floor, and he staggered forward as the smaller intruder brought their knee up to hit him in the face with surprising force. He fell to his knees, then used his left arm to propel his body backward, sweeping the legs of the bigger intruder out from under them. They landed with a heavy thud.

“Aw, fuck!”

The voice was deep, male, American.

“You okay, Brockie?”

The voice above and in front of him was high, female, and spoke American English with only the barest trace of some other influence in it. It didn’t matter what that was, so Bucky didn’t dwell on it.

_Survive._

She’d called him _Brockie._ He remembered an undercover HYDRA agent named Rumlow. Brock Rumlow. This was it. HYDRA had found him. He knew what HYDRA wanted with him. He knew he couldn’t let that happen. He sprang to his feet and tried to run to the door again.

“Don’t let him get away!”

The small woman followed Rumlow’s instruction, stepping in front of Bucky’s charge. He regretted how badly this would hurt her, possibly _kill_ her, but she was HYDRA, and she was compromising his survival, and he didn’t have time for guilt or second-guessing right now-

Running into her was like hitting a brick wall, except he was pretty sure he could actually break through a brick wall. She staggered back slightly, and he staggered back slightly, unprepared, and his shock was all Rumlow needed to hit him again. He turned to deal with Rumlow, who he’d initially, incorrectly, considered the greater threat. Bucky hit him square in the chest with his metal fist, but he felt some sort of protective device there. Rumlow laughed as he lurched briefly.

“Shock absorbers, bitch. Not as good as your boyfriend’s vibranium, but good enough. Plus, I don’t really feel pain no more. So, bring it!”

He talked too much. Bucky aimed for his face this time, but Rumlow blocked it, similar shock absorbers padding his forearms.

“Get ‘im, Brockie,” the woman cheered behind them, and she must have hit the light switch, because the overhead fluorescents flickered to life. “Get ‘im!”

“Don’t you mean, get _it?”_

Rumlow scoffed at him from behind his mask, and Bucky’s heart clenched, because Rumlow _knew._

“Right, oops,” the woman cackled with glee. “Get it!”

She had to be another super soldier. She was so strong. Then again, there were so many different types of superhumans now, plus robots and aliens. She could be any one of those. He wasn’t particularly worried about Rumlow, once he’d disabled the man’s equipment he could be incapacitated, but fighting her was going to prove more difficult, and he didn’t really want to fight anyone. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there.

Rumlow was wearing black combat gear similar to Bucky’s own Winter Soldier outfit, except for the shock absorbers, and the giant gauntlets over both hands. He also wore a skull-like mask, and there was a crude white _X_ painted on his chest. Several mocking quips about the outfit flew to Bucky’s lips, but then he remembered that Rumlow knew what he was, and they all died on his tongue. It was better just to disarm and defeat him.

He caught the right gauntlet with his left arm, crushing it as Rumlow yelled with rage. The other gauntlet hit him in his unprotected side, and he fell back, circling his opponent. He was aware of the woman guarding the door she’d closed during the melee. She was very young, with bright red hair, wearing an impractical red leather outfit with heeled thigh-high boots. Maybe beating her would be easier than he’d thought. Maybe.

Rumlow hit him again, a glancing blow to his right shoulder, but he whirled and grabbed the fist, crushing it, too. He used Rumlow’s distraction to punch him in the face, and he heard a cracking noise as Rumlow fell.

“My turn, Brockie?”

Bucky turned to face the strange young woman, wiping Rumlow’s blood from his face.

“C’mon Sin,” Rumlow grumbled from behind him, but Bucky determined that he was still lying on the ground, dazed. “Don’t _emasculate_ me in front of the fucking Winter Soldier.”

“Impossible,” Sin winked at Bucky. “Though, it’d give you two something in common, huh?”

He saw insanity in her eyes. An insanity to rival his own, but hers was focused on causing _others_ pain. On causing _him_ pain. He dived toward her, ferocious and determined, but she sidestepped him. She caught his metal arm and twisted it behind him, trapping him, her other arm sliding across his throat and cutting off the air supply, holding him as he struggled. She was so strong. Stronger than him, and he despaired.

“Shh, it’s okay, baby,” Sin cooed in his ear. “We’re gonna take you home.”

He knew what she meant, and he tried to fight her off. They were going to take him back. They were going to make him hurt someone else. They were going to make him hurt _Steve-_

"Zhelaniye,” Rumlow said, and Bucky panicked in Sin's arms.

_No! No, no, God, please, no-_

Rumlow was still on the floor, but he had sat up, and he had that hateful red book in his mangled right hand.

“Rzhavyy.”

It was smart, what they were doing, Bucky acknowledged, even as he fought against the insipid fog seeping into his mind. He could feel the Soldier stirring. If he could breathe, he would have screamed.

“Semnadtsat’.”

Rumlow’s pronunciation was atrocious, but that didn’t seem to matter.

“Rassvet.”

He knew it had been Mr. M who had chosen the words, but he didn’t know what their significance had been. Probably nothing. A string of random words to keep him in check.

“Pech’.”

He felt like he was in a furnace now. Sweating, despite the cold air from the cracked window. Nothing compared to the winters in Siberia. Home. He was going home. The Soldier was stronger now.

“Devyat’. Dobroserdechnyy. Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu.”

He was going home. Would his better, stronger brothers and sister also be there, waiting for him? To _play?_

“Odin.”

_Steve, I’m sorry!_

**_No, this is good. This is good. Bucky causes you nothing but pain, but I am here, and I am good, and you want to be good, don’t you?_ **

Yes. He wants to be good.

“Gruzovoy vagon, bitch.”

Rumlow closed the book and rose shakily to his feet. Sin let go of his throat, and he could breathe again.

“You’re _our_ bitch now.”

The Soldier’s mouth was moving, swearing fealty and obeisance to its new masters.

_It wants to be good._


	11. Chapter 11

* * *

Days passed. Steve moved through them like a sleepwalker. _“Soon,”_ Natasha promised him whenever he asked about the info she was gathering. That meant she’d found nothing current, nothing pressing that demanded their immediate attention. Just more horrors from the past that he hadn’t prevented. She was compiling it all into a macabre story for him, and whenever that illusive _soon_ arrived he knew he’d read it as solemnly and thoroughly as he’d read his mother’s Bible as a child, when he’d still believed in its verity and import.

_Soon._

He went online and searched for more information about the questions he had about himself. _Gay, Bisexual, Demisexual?_ The words felt foreign, even if the definitions made sense, but he didn’t know which, if any, applied to him, and it frustrated him. He didn’t want to label himself, but he _did_ at the same time. He wanted the comfort, the certainty, of a definitive label, a definitive identity, even as he chafed against it. To convolute the issue even more, his mind went back and forth on his feelings. One moment he would be convinced of what he wanted, finding memories to prove that the way he felt had been the way he’d always felt, even when he hadn’t realized it. In the next moment, he’d think himself grasping at straws. He was straight, he’d always been straight, this was just temporary confusion.

Steve had limited experience with sex, despite what he’d said to the contrary to Natasha to make her leave him alone about the ineptitude of their fake kiss, but every experience he’d had had been with a woman. He’d lost his virginity to a woman in 1944. Marjorie Gray. Big blue eyes, perfectly coiffed brown hair, and ample breasts. One of the dancers on his original Captain America tour. That had been nice, right? He’d liked it? He remembered liking it, but he also remembered how she had been the one to pursue him, and he’d admired her boldness while also being desperate to finally make it with a woman-

_-he was healthy, strong, and handsome now, she wanted him, and there was no reason not to. Besides, what would Bucky say when he found out Steve had the chance to get there with a dish like Marjorie and he hadn’t-_

A small smile twisted Steve’s face when he realized he’d been thinking of _Bucky_ during his first time. What Bucky would have done, what Bucky would have said, how proud Bucky would be of him when he found out. Bucky _had_ been proud, when he’d told him later. Not about Marjorie specifically, because that would have been unchivalrous of Steve, but he’d told him enough. Bucky had pounded him on the back and bought him another ineffectual beer, because that was what friends did, right? Straight men, celebrating together, and nothing more.

Marjorie was the only person he’d ever slept with. They’d played horizontal polo several times during that tour, but she was the only one. The notches on Steve’s bedpost were paltry: Women kissed- four, women slept with- one. All instances which had been instigated by them, not Steve. But that didn’t mean anything regarding his sexuality. It didn’t- did it?

He wanted to ask Sam some questions, but he didn’t want to broach the subject with him again, not after the awkwardness of their last late-night conversation. Sam was treating him normally, trusting him to keep his secret, and probably suspecting something of Steve’s internal conflict, Steve was sure. He didn’t want to verify Sam’s suspicions. He wasn’t ready for that. He might never be ready.

Instead, he did other research. Research on castration, and its aftereffects. He knew he was projecting, assuming things about Bucky, about what he wanted and needed, but he had to see if there was a chance that Bucky could enjoy things that he once had. If there was a chance he could enjoy them with Steve. Assuming, of course, that Bucky had really felt that way about Steve. And that Steve himself felt that way about Bucky. And that Bucky was still _Bucky-_

He found out more than he’d ever wanted to know on the subject. From what he gathered, the removal of the testicles wouldn’t be the biggest issue. Decreased sex drive didn’t mean _no_ sex drive, and the non-external consequences of the procedure were probably being offset by Zola’s super soldier serum, especially since the removal of his adrenal glands hadn’t _killed_ Bucky like it would have an unenhanced person. No, the biggest issue would be the mutilation to the penis. Still, neuroregeneration through both natural and medical means was more than possible.

Steve tried to imagine bringing this up with Bucky, once he found him. That thought was scarier than facing the Red Skull, the Chitauri, and Ultron combined. He began to feel guilty that he’d seen those videos. Like he’d taken one more piece of Bucky’s autonomy. At the same time, he knew that he always would have watched them. He didn’t know how to feel about that. What that meant about himself.

Two more emails showed up from _Natalia Romanova._ Steve deleted both of them, purging the trash afterwards. _Delete forever?_ the little grey box asked, accusatory, and he clicked it before he could change his mind. Despite having been told by Sam, Nat, _and_ Tony on several occasions that _“nothing’s ever really deleted from the internet,”_ it made him feel better. He could never be tempted to see Bucky in those positions he knew his friend would never have wanted anyone to see him in, let alone Steve. He could never be tempted to watch those videos Rumlow and Schmidt wanted him to see. The perverted joy they were gleaning from his imagined pain was erroneous, and he took satisfaction from that. Nat would find those two, and Steve would bring them to justice. Just like she’d find Bucky, and Steve would bring him _home-_

Then he’d panic. Maybe Rumlow and Schmidt had found Bucky already. Maybe the messages he’d deleted were their ransom notes, their location. Maybe by _not_ opening and watching, he was making things worse-

He was drowning inside himself again, and as usual he wouldn’t ask for help. Even after all these years, all these changes, he still didn’t know how. He tried to imagine how Bucky would have seen his pain, known just what to say, or at least glowered at him until Steve opened up. He appreciated Sam and Nat’s approaches, but they weren’t what he needed right now.

He needed Bucky. Definitely as a friend, and maybe as something else, too.

_Maybe? Don’t make me laugh, Rogers. You’ve always been smitten, you just didn’t have the balls to admit it before._

Steve cringed at the word choice of his inner monologue.

He missed Bucky. As he’d missed him since 1943, when he’d gone overseas to fight and left Steve behind. As he’d missed him when he’d thought Bucky dead, that unquenchable, longing ache that had only been sated with a suicidal plunge into the Arctic. As he’d missed him when he’d awoken nearly seventy years from that failed attempt, and thrown himself into service and missions so that he wouldn’t have to think about it. Now that Steve knew Bucky was alive, he missed him anew, but this ache was tinged with hope, and that made it all-the-more unbearable. Hope was so fragile. So easily crushed.

To distract himself, he kept a closer eye on Wanda. After Vienna, Sam had bounced back within a day, but Wanda had sunk deeper into self-doubt. Steve found her crying in one of the common rooms the day after their return, but she hadn’t wanted to talk to him, and he could neither judge nor offer any dazzling insight. After he left her, he called Clint. He got the retired Avenger’s voicemail, and left a brief message asking him to give Wanda a call. Clint would know that Steve wouldn’t ask unless it was important.

Steve lost track of the days until he received an email from Sabine inviting him to her Thanksgiving celebration in a week’s time. He almost took her up on the offer, before he remembered how awkward that would be, surrounded by Peggy’s family. He sent Sabine a polite declination, feeling like a horrible friend but relieved once the message was sent. He had already been planning on Thanksgiving with the Avengers, the ones without families. They would be celebrating Thanksgiving in New York together, as they celebrated every holiday. Tony pulled out all the stops for Hanukkah/Christmas and Thanksgiving, but the worst for Steve was always the Fourth of July. He could remember every nerve-wracking combination Independence Day/Captain America’s birthday shindig at the Avenger’s Tower. Elaborate fireworks exploding overhead as Steve gritted his teeth, smiled, and reminded himself that they weren’t bombs. And, boy, did Tony _love_ to make jokes about how _of course_ Captain America’s birthday was _fucking-July-fourth-_

_“Happy Birthday, Steve,” Bucky said, smiling, when Steve opened the door, handing him the orange cake Mrs. Barnes had baked him. It was Steve’s first birthday since his mother’s death, and he’d been moping in his apartment all day, but Bucky had gotten off his shift at Goldie’s and Mrs. Barnes had decorated the cake beautifully with white buttercream and genuine orange slices, and suddenly things weren’t so bleak-_

Sam, Rhodey, and Pepper were going to their own families. Nat and Wanda were going to Clint’s, which meant Steve would be in New York with only Tony and Vision. He dreaded how awkward that was going to be. He wondered if, wherever he was, Bucky would celebrate.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a warning, I'm just making a right mess of comic/movie canon to suit my needs at this point.

* * *

_ Soon _ arrived, five days before Thanksgiving. Nat interrupted him in one of the bright rec rooms on the top floor. He was painting, with watercolors, remembering his hand around Bucky’s wrist. He was painting Sam, Wanda, and Rhodey in action in the training room, but he couldn’t quite get the shape of Wanda’s hands right, and it was frustrating him.

The folder Nat handed him was at least three times as thick as the one he’d gotten from her originally. He took it with steady hands he wished he was allowed to let shake.

“Let me know if you need anything.”

Steve promised her that he would. Back in the relative privacy of his room, he opened the deceptively innocuous folder’s cover and dived into the pages of the macabre story he had to know.

The story he read was of HYDRA’s quest to create the perfect super soldier, a malleable killing machine in the body of a man. It had been sparked by the work of Johann Schmidt and Abraham Erskine, but it had evolved from there. After Erskine’s assassination, Arnim Zola had attempted to recreate the formula, using prisoners of war in his experiments. In a coincidence of cosmic proportions, his greatest success, the first subject that hadn’t died from the procedure, had been Sergeant James Barnes of the 107th. The best friend of Erskine’s greater, but only, success.

He read the histories of Zola and Marko Mikhaylov, aka Mr. M. Born in Switzerland and Russia, respectively. Both joining up with HYDRA inadvertently, but becoming figureheads of the organization regardless. Both instrumental in breaking Bucky’s body and soul in ways Steve couldn’t have conceived on his own.

Mr. M had been HYDRA’s top torture expert, recruited from Russia once HYDRA had declared its separation from Hitler and Nazi Germany. The methods M had employed were somehow less horrific to Steve than the medical torture Zola had overseen, despite accounts of Zola’s weak stomach for blood and gore. Instead of attempting to take his serum back to formula, Zola had continued modifying Bucky’s body to accommodate it. Through his experiments, Zola had discovered that female subjects reacted better to the process than males. For HYDRA, that simply wouldn’t do. They’d preferred to cut Bucky up to make him “better.”

Steve had previously had the sneaking suspicion that this had been at least somewhat personal for Zola, but here it was confirmed. Captain America’s closest friend, whose presumed death had occurred during Zola’s capture, was a tempting target for residual frustrations. The cosmic coincidence had proven very painful for Bucky.

Later, after M had successfully wiped Bucky’s mind and created the Winter Soldier, the new HYDRA scientists had brought in their first long-term female subject. Sinthea Schmidt, the young daughter of the deceased Red Skull.

Steve discovered that his instincts about Sin had been right on the nose. Her mother had died in childbirth, and when she’d not been the son Schmidt had desired, Sin had been handed over to one of Schmidt’s followers. Indoctrinated and tortured until she was twelve years old, Sin had been given to the Winter Soldier program in 1948, over a year-and-a-half after Bucky had been placed in long-term cryo for the first time. Zola had injected her with his serum and removed her adrenal glands. She had taken to it quite well, according to the documents, and she had remained in cryo in the German HYDRA facility while Bucky had been moved to Siberia. There had been no need to brainwash her the way they had Bucky. She’d been raised from birth to “Hail HYDRA.”

Sin had been overlooked by HYDRA for decades, just as her own father had overlooked her, only to be thawed out in 2006 and sent to Beirut. There, she’d escaped and disappeared. Disappeared, until now. Steve tried to imagine a fourteen year old girl, with all that power and all that horror inside her, making her way alone in an unfamiliar modern world for the last nine years. How had she survived? How many people had she killed in that time?

_ Bucky’s different. He is. He  _ **_is._ **

The same doctor Steve had seen in the first video had overseen the procedures on Sin. After all he’d seen with M and Zola, Steve had barely given him a second thought, but there was a name and a face for him now. Dr. Alexi Cronos. He was still alive, looking barely out of middle-age after years of self-experimentation with serums and robotics. Steve stared at the man’s picture for a long time, trying to control his darkness. He could have this man found. He could have this man killed. He could kill this man himself.

_ Later. _

He put his fantasies for revenge on hold. He’d find Bucky first. He’d stop Rumlow and Schmidt. Then- then Alexi Cronos should pray Steve never found him alive. The darkness inside him dissipated, temporarily appeased, and Steve thought about Erskine. The man who’d believed in him and his capabilities when no one else, not even Bucky, had. The man who’d used his dying gesture to remind Steve of that belief.  _ A good man, _ Erskine had been convinced. A good man.

_ He was wrong. _

There was more in the file, but it was mostly information he’d already known. Zola’s ultimate fate. Rumlow’s ordinary suburban upbringing, his restless thirst for violence, and his subsequent recruitment to HYDRA his first year at the S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy. There was no information on how Rumlow and Sin had found each other. They made quite the couple, Steve thought. Beacons of violence and pain, calling out to each other.

Steve skimmed over years of the Winter Soldier’s kills, and all that had been done to Bucky in-between, until he reached a picture he’d never seen before. Bucky-  _ the Soldier- _ with mask in place and those awful blank eyes, fighting with a tiny blond girl that couldn’t have been more than thirteen. The picture was in black-and-white, dated October 1985, so Steve knew it wasn’t Nat. It had been taken as the Soldier was bringing his gloved metal fist to strike the girl’s face. The girl’s body was poised to dodge, but there was a look of complete terror on her face that made Steve sick. He didn’t want to know how that encounter had ended. Nat had told him before that many girls hadn’t survived the Red Room.

The next page was more information on the merging of the Soviet-based Winter Soldier program and the K.G.B.’s Black Widow program under the direction of HYDRA’s Vasily Karpov and the Red Room’s Madame B. Girls brought to the Red Room after 1984 were given Zola’s serum, but no other surgery, letting them gain a healing factor and a small degree of enhanced strength to give them an edge. The original Winter Soldier was brought in periodically to test them, while Karpov plotted to create or gain access to a formula closer to Erskine’s. He’d had no desire to mutilate his Soldiers the way Zola had. In 1991, at the cost of Howard and Maria Stark, Karpov had achieved his goal.

Steve stopped to process all this. He wondered who else knew that Natasha was an enhanced. He decided he wouldn’t bring it up, unless Nat wanted to talk about it.

_ And what about Tony? _

Steve returned to the file. Karpov’s success had been limited. He’d gotten the serum, but the Winter Soldiers he created had been HYDRA to begin with. The serum enhanced their strength and healing, but also their blood-lust and aggression. They’d been impossible to control, so they’d been put into cryo indefinitely. Steve wondered if they were still there. The Siberian base had yet to be uncovered, so in all likelihood they were. Another HYDRA mess to clean up, but after.

Steve quickly finished the contents of the file. The ending he already knew. The Winter Soldier brought to D.C. to kill Nick Fury, and the resulting fallout from all of that. He closed the cover, mind and heart racing. So much more to process. So much more to stew about in impotent fear and frustration. Against his better judgment, Steve checked his email. Nothing. He didn’t know whether to feel relieved or worried about that. He went down to the gym.

*

The next  _ soon _ arrived the following day. Nat was at his door, her face carefully neutral. They hadn’t discussed what was in those files yet. Neither seemed willing to be the first to broach the subject.

“Can I come in? I have something to show you.”

He allowed her inside. After gaining his permission, she sat at his desk, opened his computer and brought up her hacked email account.

“I’ve been watching videos they’ve sent you,” she explained clinically. “The ones you deleted. Don’t worry, there’s been nothing on them that you needed to see.”

He should have known, but Steve was overwhelmingly glad that someone had been keeping tabs on those videos. He should have asked her to, but Natasha was always one step ahead of him, even while watching his back.

“Thank you.”

She clicked an attachment and brought up a video. She looked up at him, slight unease marring her features for the first time.

“Nothing until this one. I just finished watching it. Friday’s gathering and briefing the team right now, but I think you need to see this.”

Steve’s heart jackhammered into his throat as he sat stiffly in the chair beside Nat. She played the video.


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

It opened on a dank, dim chamber that made Steve cold just looking at it. There was a chair surrounded by ominous equipment in the center of the round room, ringed with six cryostasis chambers, most of which Steve could see vague shapes inside. The room was empty for a few seconds, before two figures came into frame, backs to the camera, heading for the chair. The leading figure’s red red hair and skimpy red outfit gave her away. Steve’s heart skipped a beat when he realized he was looking at Bucky, the present-day Bucky, for the first time since the Helicarrier. He marched stiffly after Sin, metal and flesh arms straight at his sides, wearing a tight, sleeveless bodysuit and no shoes. Neither Bucky nor Sin seemed to notice the cold, though their breath frosted in front of them as they walked. Steve didn’t need to see Bucky’s face to imagine the blankness there. They’d got him, Sin and Rumlow. Steve had been too late once again.

“Sit,” Sin turned to Bucky, winking beyond him at the camera where Rumlow must surely be filming. There were no subtitles. “Stay. Good dog.”

Bucky sat down in the chair. His hair was as long as Steve remembered it from two years ago, and it fell in waves around his vacant eyes. Steve struggled to think of him as Bucky, but he  _ was. _ That was Bucky, and he was alive, but in danger, and Steve was so close to finding him, he knew it-

Sin strapped Bucky down, by arms and ankles, and lowered a contraption from the top of the chair over Bucky’s forehead, pressing the small flat panels to his temples and shoving a mouthguard between his teeth even as Bucky moved his lips to accept it willingly. Sin moved to a control panel and began fiddling with dials and buttons. From the files he’d read, Steve knew what was about to happen.

“Nat,” he forced himself to look away, at her. “Can we- ? Do I have to watch this part?”

“No, of course you don’t,” she seemed surprised, but heartened by his request. “Here- ”

Nat clicked the  _ fast-forward _ button. It seemed to take forever, and Steve could still make out the flashes of electricity, the writhing of Bucky’s body, the way his eyes bulged and his mouth screamed around the guard, but at least he couldn’t  _ hear _ it. He felt guilty about that, but he wasn’t sure why, so he pushed it aside.

When the video resumed, Bucky was slumped in the chair, panting with pain and exhaustion. Rumlow’s voice came from behind the camera.

“Sure you know how to do that, babe?”

“Close enough,” Sin shrugged and grinned nonchalantly as she made her way to unstrap Bucky from the chair. “And if I scramble his brains too bad, we got five other Soldiers to get it right on.”

She undid the last restraint and ordered Bucky to stand. He swayed dangerously, but complied. Sin spoke a string of Russian words with purposeful solemnity that made Bucky twitch. When she’d finished, he spoke back to her flatly in Russian.

“Good,” Sin switched back to English, stroking his cheek in a perversion of approval that Bucky closed his eyes and leaned into. “Take off your clothes.”

“Aw, c’mon Sin,” Rumlow muttered disgustedly from behind the camera.

Bucky didn’t hesitate. It took him less than twenty seconds to strip out of the black bodysuit, and he stood there naked, back straight, his entire focus on Sin and her will. Steve looked at his face, nowhere else, and he tensed, anticipating what would inevitably follow.

“I’m sorry. Don’t worry,” Nat spoke soothingly in his ear. “They don’t make him- it’s a demonstration of their control, but nothing sexual. I promise. We can stop it at any time, I just didn’t want to keep this one from you.”

“No,” Steve relaxed minutely. “I do- I want to- ”

“Punch yourself, Soldier,” Sin was saying. “In the face.”

Bucky did, brutally hard. He used his right hand.

“With your other hand.”

Bucky did. Steve heard a crack, and when the metal fist came away he saw blood pouring from Bucky’s now-crooked nose.

“Good. Harder.”

More cracking. More blood. Bucky’s lip was split now.

“Enough,” Sin looked at the camera, a wicked smile curling her crimson lips. “Heya Steve. I  _ really _ hope you’re watching this, ‘cause if not- ”

She glanced briefly back to Bucky.

“If not, I can pretty much make him do anything. To himself. To other people. Anything. He’d blow his own brains out if I ordered him to.”

“You should see what I made him do when we found him,” Rumlow sounded proud, and the camera wobbled before stabilizing. “Just Google  _ Bucharest Apartment Massacre, _ it’s some good stuff.”

Coordinates flashed across the screen.  _ 56° 36' 3.5568'' N 110° 52' 56.1468'' E. _ Steve didn’t bother to try and memorize them. He knew Natasha had already done that, and given them to Friday and the team.

“Don’t make me order him to hurt himself anymore, okay Steve? Just come to these coordinates and find us,” Sin’s voice lilted mockingly higher, like a young girl begging for a piece of candy. “He’s got such a pretty face, doesn’t he?”

She moved to stroke Bucky’s damaged face, using her right thumb and forefinger to reposition Bucky’s nose, letting it start to heal correctly. Bucky didn’t even flinch.

“Wake up, Soldier.”

The emptiness receded from Bucky’s eyes, and that was somehow worse. His lip was nearly whole again.

“I need you to say something for me, Soldier.”

_ “ _ _ Konechno.” _

“In English, Soldier.”

“Of course. What?”

Sin stretched up on her tiptoes, balancing expertly as her stiletto heels hovered in the air. She whispered something in Bucky’s ear.

“Come and find me, Steve,” Bucky said it to Sin in an empty monotone. “Please, come save me.”

“To the camera, stupid,” Sin chided him. “And  _ beg _ for it. Make me believe it.”

Bucky looked at the camera, his face softening. Steve’s heart lurched as he repeated the words in Bucky’s voice, eyes wide as he implored Steve to save him. The moment the words left his mouth, his face returned to its impassivity, and with a gasp, Steve realized he hadn’t been breathing.

“Be seeing you soon,  _ Captain,” _ Rumlow growled from behind the camera.

“Or else,” Sin finished for him. She mimicked a gun with the fingers of her right hand, pressing the pretend barrel against Bucky’s temple and bringing her thumb down. The video cut out.

“That was the right call,” Steve turned to Natasha. “Thank you.”

She looked uncharacteristically uncertain, but she nodded at him.

“I’d caution you against going on this one,” she said. “But that would be hypocritical of me. There’d be no way in hell I wouldn’t go if, it were me and that was Clint. Or you.”

He rose, nodding stiffly.

“I’ll get in uniform.”

She started for the door.

“Me too. See you in the hangar.”

Steve heard the door close. He dressed himself in a trance. They were walking into a trap. He was leading the Avengers- his friends, his  _ family- _ into a trap, and he should care more about that. He should-

_ Hold on, Bucky. I’m coming for you. I know I’ve let you down, so fucking bad, but I won’t this time. I promise I won’t. _

He picked up his shield. The familiar weight of it in his hand grounded him, and Captain America took over. He was Captain America in this uniform, with this shield. Everything would be fine now. Captain America could do and say the things Steve Rogers couldn’t on his own. Captain America could get Bucky out of this horrific situation.

But was he really Captain America right now? Steve thought with horror as he rushed to the hangar. Captain America wouldn’t rush into danger like this, dragging his friends with him. Captain America would think of the greater good, bring other legal authorities into this. Captain America would-

_ The first time you truly became Captain America it was to save Bucky. _

And, oh, yes, that was true. It was, and though he’d failed to save Bucky later, Steve clung to that thought as the Quinjet came into view, the door open and waiting for him to board.

_ Hold on, Bucky. _


	14. Chapter 14

* * *

The ride to the coordinates in Siberia was fraught with tension. Even Sam’s usual quips were missing as he piloted the jet, Wanda brooding in the copilot’s chair. Vision stood in the back of the aircraft, staring blankly out the front windows, and Rhodey sat cleaning a gun on the passenger bench. Nat and Steve sat across from Rhodey, reviewing the details Steve had missed during the rest of the team’s briefing. Rumlow and Sin had Bucky under their control, as well as potentially five other supersoldiers with HYDRA backgrounds.

“That video was filmed this morning, so it’s very recent,” Nat told Steve. “And I called Tony. Pepper took the message, said he was in a meeting.”

Out of the corner of his eye Steve could see Rhodey look up at the mention of Tony. He tamped down his guilt.

“We all know this is a trap,” Natasha continued warningly. “They know us, our capabilities. Except for maybe Vision. I think he’s our best chance at taking them down. Vision and I will scope ahead, assess the situation. You and Rhodey behind us, Sam and Wanda in the rear. We know they have a way to disrupt Wanda’s powers, so we’ll find and disable that before bringing her into play.”

“Yeah,” Steve agreed rotely, his mind already at their destination. “Sounds good.”

“They have Barnes- Bucky- under total control. That  _ Bucharest Apartment Massacre _ they mentioned, I looked it up. It was brutal, Steve. The entire building; men, women, children. Everyone home that night. There’s footage, too, implicating him, which will make things- trickier.”

“Fuck,” Steve breathed, imagining Bucky’s reaction to that news. “Just-  _ fuck.” _

“Language, Rogers,” she laughed halfheartedly.

“Bite me, Romanoff.”

He didn’t know whether his frustration with her was a joke or not. They sat in silence for a long moment. Steve stared at his gloved hands, and at the shield by his feet.

“This is going to be difficult,” Natasha tried again, hesitantly. “Bringing him in alive.”

His head whipped up and he could feel himself glaring, a snarl on his lips at the idea of any alternative to bringing Bucky in alive. She held his gaze.

“We’ll all try our goddamn best. Of course we will, but there is the possibility it might come down to us or him. Are you prepared for that?”

No. Never.

“I won’t,” he told her. “I can’t.”

“I can,” she said steadily. “If it comes down to a choice between Wanda or him? Sam or him? Rhodey, Vision?  _ You _ or him? I can- I  _ will. _ In a heartbeat.”

Steve knew she was right, and he hated that he was putting her in this position. She was right, but if- if she- he’d never be able to forgive her. And how was that fair? How was that right? He was so goddamn selfish. It was one thing to put himself at risk, as he had on the Helicarrier, but the rest of his team? His friends?

“I don’t- ” he swallowed hard. “Nat, I  _ can’t.” _

“I know,” her voice became consoling. “So, I’ll do it for you, if I have to. And I’ll take your blame for that, too, if I have to. I’m just warning you, _if_ I have to- ”

Suddenly he was afraid. He was afraid that if it came down to a choice between Nat and Bucky, even a Bucky who wasn’t really Bucky and was jeopardizing the lives of his friends, he’d still choose Bucky. Whatever the cost, he’d stop Nat from killing the shell that had once been his best friend. His best friend, who he now knew he’d loved completely, even if he was over seventy years too late in that knowledge.

“It won’t come to that,” Steve growled stubbornly, hating himself and his thoughts. “It won’t.”

“I hope you’re right,” Nat looked away from him. “I really do.”

They spent the rest of the trip in silence. Sam got them there in record time, landing the Quinjet in the white wasteland. It took them about ten minutes of searching the rocky crags, Scarlet Witch and Vision blasting the snow away, to find the large steel door embedded in the cliffside. There was a keypad, but a wave of the Scarlet Witch’s hand opened the door, making the code unnecessary.

“Remember,” Black Widow reminded them before she and Vision disappeared into the unknown chasm beyond the door. “We’re up against, Rumlow, Schmidt, five HYDRA supersoldiers, and Barnes. Use lethal force on the others if necessary, but we’re bringing Barnes in alive.”

There was a murmur of consensus from the team. Black Widow and Vision faded from sight.

“You okay?”

Falcon was at his side, goggles obscuring his eyes, his wings not yet engaged. Steve was too emotionally exhausted to lie.

“Not really.”

“Can’t imagine you would be.”

Falcon put a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve was having a hard time thinking about his friend with a codename.

“How about you, Sam?”

Sam shrugged.

“Well, it’s really fucking cold,” he rubbed his bare arms. “And I’m not really looking forward to facing off against the Winter Soldier again. Kinda threw me for a loop last time. You know, when he literally threw me off the side of a helicarrier.”

_ “All I could think,” Sam had confessed two days after the Triskelion. “As I was falling, sure I was gonna die, all I could think was- ‘Is this how Riley felt? Or was he already dead when he was falling?’ Not quite sure which is worse, to be honest.” _

_ Steve had marveled how willing this man was to follow him in his pursuit of Bucky, after everything. He’d barely met Sam two weeks ago, and yet here he was. He was humbled, and confused, and so, so grateful- _

“Good thing there aren’t any helicarriers around, huh?”

Sam gave him a look. That look of pure exasperation and utter devotion that Steve could read even without seeing his eyes.

“I just wanna warn you, if you make me miss Thanksgiving dinner,  _ you’ll _ have to explain it to Grandma Wilson, and, Captain America or not, I don’t like your odds there.”

Steve had completely forgotten about the upcoming holiday.

“Sam- Falcon- you don’t have to do this. None of you,” Steve raised his voice to include the Scarlet Witch and War Machine. “I know this is a trap. I know that this is something that’s important to me, but it has nothing to do with the rest of you. If you want out, if you want to leave now, I won’t hold it against you.”

He meant every word, but the unbearable hope that they would stay, that they would help him, swelled in his chest. His friends didn’t disappoint.

“Uh-huh,” Falcon was unimpressed. “Nice speech, Cap. Now that’s off your chest, you ready to get your head in the game?”

“I’m here for you,” Scarlet Witch’s eyes glowed red with her conviction. “And- and I know- I’ve  _ seen- _ I know that your friend deserves to be saved.”

“What they said,” the words echoed inside War Machine’s mask. “This is what we signed up for. This is what we do.”

Steve thanked them softly, afraid that the lump in his throat would choke him.

“But I’m serious about Grandma Wilson,” Falcon warned, clapping him on the back. “She might be ninety, but she’s a scrapper.”

Steve was trying to come up with a witty retort when the panic button at his waist began to vibrate and blink. The signal for radio silence and immediate back-up. He looked to the rest of his team. Their buttons were reacting identically.

“War Machine, you and me in first,” he gestured to the door. “Then Falcon. Scarlet Witch, hang back until we assess their capabilities.”

She nodded, wide-eyed, as War Machine entered the base and Falcon stepped in front of her, wings in shield-mode. Steve saw that he’d brought the drone he’d been working on for the past few months. It attached to his back, between his mechanical scapulars. Redwing, that’s what he called it. Steve remembered how excited Sam had been about it, and he hadn’t realized he’d completed it. He really was a bad friend-

_ The mission. _

Captain America gripped the fingers of his left hand around the straps of his shield and strode into the base after War Machine. Inside it was dim, but there was enough natural light coming from somewhere above that War Machine shut down his lighting system almost immediately. It was a maze of inelegant machines and metal walkways, but Black Widow had left flashing trackers to show where she and Vision had gone. War Machine scanned for life signatures all along the way, but they came back negative every time.

“I got a bad feeling about this, Cap,” Falcon mumbled after about five minutes, clearly grasping for something to say.

“Thanks, Obi-Wan.”

“Oh, well, show the guy three movies and suddenly he’s Mr. Pop Culture.”

“I thought it was Han Solo who said that line?”

Scarlet Witch’s voice came softly from farther back.

“Nah,” War Machine said distractedly. He had stopped at a short flight of rough stone stairs, scanning the space above. “Pretty sure everyone in  _ Star Wars _ says it at least once at some point.”

The absurdity of the situation struck Steve. They were the Avengers, likely walking to their deaths. He wanted to laugh maniacally.

“Avengers, focus.”

He wanted to scream his throat raw.

“War Machine, report?”

He didn’t want to see what had become of Bucky. Because if there was nothing left of him, if Sin and Rumlow had turned him back into that shell, forever, Steve wouldn’t be able to bear it.

“Still nothing, Cap.”

_ Your fault. _

“Up the stairs, then.”

At the top of the stairs, Black Widow’s trackers led the way to a large metal blast door, already ajar.

“We all know this is a trap,” Captain America repeated, taking a deep breath. “Right?”

“Known all along,” Falcon’s bravado would have convinced anyone who didn’t know him. “So what’re we waiting for?”

“There are heat signatures in there, but they’re faint. Either six or seven. Five or six on the main floor, two or three up above, so I think there are catwalks.”

“We’ll run Scenario: India Uniform Oscar,” Captain America decided. “And Scarlet Witch, hang back, I’ll signal when we’re ready for you.”

Her eyes and hands glowed red in the gloom as she nodded.

_ I’m here, Bucky. I’m finally here. Please be here, too. _


	15. Chapter 15

* * *

On Captain America’s signal, War Machine blew down the door, and he and Falcon took to the air, sweeping opposite sides of the chamber Steve had seen in that final video. He rushed in on their heels, shield ready, assessing the situation.

There was so much going on, overhead and on the ground, that it took Captain America a second to decide what he should deal with first. The ring of cryo chambers were dark and empty. Not a good sign. War Machine was firing at an unknown someone on the walkways above, a someone who was firing back, and he’d lost visual on Falcon. There were no visuals on Bucky, Black Widow, Rumlow, or Sin, but two of the HYDRA super soldiers he recognized from the files were flanking Vision where he stood, frozen. The large, bearded Soldier had a bulky device that hummed and sparked in his hands as he kept it pointed at Vision, while the only female Soldier covered her compatriot with an assault rifle. When she registered Captain America’s entrance, she began to shoot at him, and he blocked her barrage with his shield as he charged her.

“Ne strelyat' v nego, Yana!”

Something hit him from behind, and he toppled, rolling into the fall across the hard stone floor, clutching his shield with all his strength. He lay on his back, momentarily stunned.

“On moy.”

He recognized Rumlow’s voice and his vision cleared. Rumlow loomed over him, wearing his Crossbones costume. He peeled the mask from his head and threw it aside, revealing his ravaged face, twisted in a vicious grin. It looked like he’d had his nose broken recently.

“There you are, you son of a bitch.”

Blades unsheathed from the massive gauntlets Rumlow wore on both hands. Captain America sprang to his feet, ready to fight, his eyes momentarily sweeping his periphery for residual danger. For any sign that his friends were in need of assistance. For any sign of Bucky.

“Look at me!”

Rumlow screamed with rage. Captain America looked at him, at the pockmarked ruin of his face. The events of the last few weeks ran through his head, and he was _glad_ for what he’d done to this HYDRA thug. For what he was about to do now. His lip curled disdainfully.

“Do I have to?”

“You dropped a fucking building on me, Rogers!”

Rumlow reacted to his goading exactly how he’d wanted.

“You- you fucked me up good! So I’m gonna fuck you up, too, but I ain’t gonna kill you. Nah, I’m gonna fuck you up, then I’m gonna make you watch while I fuck up your boyfriend even more, and then I’m gonna make _him_ kill you. How’s that sound?”

It sounded like there was still something left of Bucky, at least enough that Rumlow could use him to hurt Steve. He took perverse comfort from that, even as he worried about where Bucky was. About what they were making him do-

_The mission._

**_Bucky_ ** _is_ **_the mission!_ **

_One obstacle at a time._

“You talk too much, _Brockie._ You always did.”

Rumlow charged, swinging and yelling wordlessly. Captain America sidestepped him, bringing the brunt of his shield’s weight down on Rumlow’s back. He was surprised to feel the tremors reverberating up his arm. Rumlow staggered, but didn’t fall. He whirled around, sneering.

“Got some new tricks up my sleeve this time, Rogers. And my nerve endings all got fried in the fire, so you’re gonna have to hit me a lot harder than _that.”_

He reassessed the situation. Rumlow had some sort of shock absorption built into his suit, which complicated things, as well as a self-proclaimed resistance to pain that Captain America was more than happy to test. But no matter what, first he’d have to disable those gauntlets. He looked at them, searching for weak points. As he did, out of the corner of his eye he saw Redwing hovering behind the female Soldier where she stood with her rifle trained on him. A muffled pop, a spray of blood from her neck, and she was down. Her bearded compatriot turned with an outraged cry, focusing the device in his hands on the drone. Redwing shattered into pieces.

“Aw, c’mon, asshole! I worked hard on him!”

Salvation came from above, and both Captain America and Rumlow looked up at the source of the exclamation. Falcon was swooping down, Black Widow in his arms. He launched her at Rumlow while he went to deal with the bearded Soldier, who had refocused his device on Vision. The synthetic humanoid had managed to stagger a few steps toward the Soldier while he’d been distracted by the death of his ally, but whatever the machine was had seriously jeopardized his functionality. When it was pointed back at him, Vision fell to his knees, his hands clenching, chipping at the stone floor.

“That’s the same thing they used on Scarlet Witch in Vienna!”

Falcon shouted in Captain America’s direction, dodging the focus of the device as the bearded Soldier alternated it between him and Vision. Captain America processed the information, coming to a decision as Black Widow’s booted feet struck Rumlow in the back of the head and he toppled forward. He was making the assumption, a dangerous but necessary one, that that was the only device they had, and he pressed the button on his communicator, summoning the Scarlet Witch into the fray.

“About time you guys showed up,” Black Widow somersaulted to a crouch beside him. “They disabled Vis, so I had to lay low. Well, _high.”_

She grinned at her own joke, flicking her eyes to the catwalks overhead as she stood. Rumlow swore, pushing himself back up to his feet. Captain America braced himself to shield both of them from any new attack.

“You know, you’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“Oh, whatever,” he could hear the exaggerated pout in her voice even without looking at her face. “You know I’m hilarious.”

She fired several rounds into Rumlow’s chest, with little effect. He only stumbled.

“That _tickles,_ bitch!”

She threw the Glock aside and unsheathed her batons, powering them up with a crackle of electricity. They’d done this maneuver so many times together, it came as second nature.

“Where’s Schmidt? And- and Bucky?”

Captain America asked as he took a half-step in front of her. He’d aim the full brunt of his strength into punishing attacks on Rumlow’s head while Widow went low with her stun batons.

“No sign of her or Barnes yet.”

Their tactic proved unnecessary when a blast of red energy hit Rumlow in the chest as he lurched toward them. Captain America looked briefly over his shoulder at the young woman who had created it.

“Take him out, Scar!”

Rumlow howled with helpless fury as the energy surrounded him, levitating him in the air, ripping the gauntlets from his arms and crumpling them into unusable lumps that clattered to the floor.

“Is that the nickname we’re going with? Because I think I might prefer when Iron Man calls me ‘Witchy,’ honestly.”

Scarlet Witch came up behind Captain America and Black Widow, her hands swirling in a dance of ethereal light. Rumlow flew across the room and smashed headfirst into the side of one of the cryo chambers. He fell to the ground, out cold, his right leg bent at an uncomfortable angle.

“We’ll talk about it during your performance review,” Captain America quipped dryly as he glanced at her. “Nice job.”

She quirked one eyebrow at him as she smiled with pride at his praise. Her smile faded as she took in the rest of the scene behind him.

“Oh,” her eyes fixed on Vision’s plight. “Vis!”

He turned back to the battle as she raised her hands, one conjuring a ball of red light in the palm of the other, pulsing, expanding. Black Widow had already begun charging the bearded Soldier, and Captain America looked up to check on War Machine and Falcon-

The bearded Soldier’s weapon sent a pulse of energy high into the air. Falcon dived out of its direct path, but it caught the top of his left wing and suddenly he was plunging headfirst to the ground.

“Shit, shit, shit!”

Falcon fumbled with the straps of his parachute, but Captain America saw that it was no good, he was too close to the ground, and he was running to catch Falcon but it would be too late, he was always too late to save his best friends-

Red light surrounded Falcon less than a foot from impact, righting him and easing him gently to a landing. Falcon shrugged out of the EXO harness, grumbling.

“Jesus! What is with you guys and clipping my wings, huh?”

Black Widow dodged a kick from the bearded Soldier, rolling away on the ground, and Falcon sprinted to her aid, his wrist-mounted guns firing. The Soldier finally went down, and the machine he’d been wielding powered off when it fell by his side.

“Yeah,” Falcon crowed as he helped Black Widow to her feet. “Two for two!”

His celebration was short-lived, however, when Scarlet Witch cried out in pain. A blunt-tipped arrow, similar to one of Hawkeye’s, had been fired at the back of her head as she rushed to the prone, unmoving Vision. The arrow embedded itself in her hair, and a net of crackling electricity surrounded her body as she screamed. Her body glowed red, attempting to dislodge the trap, but it made the electricity surge brighter. She collapsed, unconscious.

“Verdammte schlampe!”

The voice spat shrilly from above, and Captain America knew it was Sin before he looked up to the lowest catwalk and saw her lowering a mechanical bow from her perch atop Bucky’s shoulders. She was riding him, her legs draped over his broad shoulders and looped underneath his armpits. He was still naked, except for that muzzle-like mask he’d been wearing the first time Captain America had faced him in D.C., before he’d known the Soldier was Bucky.

“Down, boy.”

Sin dug her stiletto heels into Bucky’s sides like he was a horse, and he leapt from the catwalk. His bare feet hit the ground with such force it made Captain America wince. Bucky moved with no sense of self-preservation, his eyes blank, the living weapon HYDRA had wanted. Stripped naked in front of them all, no hiding from anyone what had been done to him-

“Let him go,” Steve heard Captain America speaking with his voice, full of self-assurance where Steve was full of despair. “Let him go, and we’ll talk about leniency for you and your associates.”

With perfect timing to accentuate his point, the body of a third Soldier fell from above. The Korean Soldier, eyes wide and glassy, a smoking crater in his chest. War Machine flew down after him, landing beside Captain America and training his wrist cannon on Sin.

“I’d listen to him, sweetheart.”

“We’ve got you outnumbered,” Black Widow said from where she stood over Rumlow, guns trained on his head. “There’s no way out of this for you.”

Sin looked at her, grinning.

“Is that so, you spayed Russian _hure?_ Because I think differently.”

She looked back to Captain America.

“I think as long as I control this thing,” she ruffled Bucky’s hair with her left hand. “I can do anything I want. Isn’t that right, Stevie?”

His mouth was suddenly dry.

“Captain America. It’s such a pleasure to meet you face-to-face. The man who killed my father, and destroyed my birthright.”

 _-Schmidt’s red face disintegrating with the rest of his body, drawn up through the hole the cube had torn in the top of the plane when the shield had cracked it, and something told Steve_ **_don’t look don’t look don’t look_ ** _so he didn’t-_

“Your birthright?”

He was trying not to be relieved by how healthy Bucky looked, all things considered. He looked strong, his face fuller than on the Helicarrier, and certainly better than he had in any of those videos.

“HYDRA,” Sin answered him. “My father may not have wanted me for an heir, but I’m what he got. And I’m better than he ever was.”

She slid off Bucky’s shoulders, keeping him between herself and the rest of them.

“After all, I’m the one who’s going to kill Captain America and enslave the Avengers.”

“Oh, really?”

Black Widow spoke again, gesturing at Rumlow with her guns for emphasis.

“Oh, Brock,” Sin was trying to be indifferent, but there was a tiny tremor in her voice. “Poor, stupid, Brockie. He doesn’t care about HYDRA, not like I do. Go ahead, shoot him, what do I care?”

“I think you do care,” Captain America told her evenly, trying to keep her talking. She seemed as fond of dramatic monologues as her father had been. “I think you do.”

“Not as much as you care about this thing.”

Sin pulled a pistol from the holster strapped around her thigh. She pressed the weapon’s hilt into Bucky’s slack right hand, which curled into a fist around it. Captain America tensed, and he could feel his teammates tensing around him as well.

“Soldier, point that at your head,” Sin ordered and Bucky obeyed. “If I say _teper’,_ shoot yourself. If one of them kills me, hurts me, or even touches me, you shoot yourself. Understood?”

“Da,” said Bucky dully from behind his mask.

“Good boy.”

Sin strode forward boldly, no longer needing to use Bucky’s body as a shield.

“Whose mind should I take first, Captain? I can wipe anyone’s mind with that chair, now. Took some trial and error, and that first poor Soldier didn’t survive the process, but I figured it out eventually. I’ll kill you, Captain, destroy the robot, but the rest of you will make good replacements for the Soldiers you’ve cost me.”

_Keep her talking!_

“Where’s the fifth one, then?”

She gave him an appraising look, and he worried that she’d seen through his ruse.

“I sent him on a special assignment,” she said at last, her lips twitching into a smile. “A little, uh, diplomatic trade mission to Wakanda. Just a little political assassination to shake things up. Vibranium is so hard to get a hold of, and I need a lot more of it. Although, your shield will do nicely for a start. Hand it over.”

He grasped at ideas as she approached him, left hand outstretched, her right clutching her bow. The Avengers could defeat her, he knew, and they were all waiting for his orders, but he couldn’t see a way out of this that didn’t end with Bucky’s brains splattered on the floor. He couldn’t. He _couldn’t-_

“Why send only one?”

Sin rolled her eyes at him.

“There was only one of them that would go unnoticed in Wakanda. Even- _undesirables_ have their uses.”

“Aw, see,” Falcon griped sarcastically. “Just when you were starting to be all sympathetic, you have to go and remind everyone that you’re a huge fucking racist Nazi.”

She focused her attention on him, hand still reaching for Captain America’s shield.

“I think I’ll take _your_ mind first. Get in the chair.”

“Yeah, right,” Falcon snorted derisively. “How do you say ‘Go fuck yourself’ in German?”

“Soldier,” Sin raised her voice. “Pull that trigger on the count of three.”

“I think you’ve confused me with Cap here,” Falcon’s false bravado still would have convinced anyone who didn’t know him. “I don’t give a shit about what happens to that guy. For God’s sake, he tried to kill me! Twice!”

“One.”

Bucky’s finger poised around the trigger.

“Bucky!”

Bucky’s blank eyes found Captain America’s. There didn’t appear to be any recognition. If anything, there was anger as those eyes, so familiar and yet unfamiliar, narrowed.

“That’s not my name.”

“Two!”

“Yes, it is. Your name is Bucky. Please remember that. Please remember me, and don’t do this.”

“I’m not fucking around here, Captain,” Sin warned. “Tell the birdman to get in the chair!”

Bucky inexplicably lowered the gun from his temple, leveling it at Captain America instead.

“But I _do_ remember you,” he said coldly. “I remember that you cost me my last mission. You cost me _everything.”_

“Soldier?” Sin had finally realized that Bucky had disobeyed, and there was fearful confusion in her voice. “Point that gun back at your head. Now!”

Bucky looked at her, his right arm shaking as he fought the urge to follow her orders. His left hand came up to his face with a mechanical hum, ripping the mask away as if it burned him, and he glared between her and Captain America, his mouth twisting.

“Naprav'te pistolet v golovu," Sin spat at him. "Togda poluchit' v kresle, Soldat.”

The Russian commands seemed to work better on Bucky. His right arm returned to point the gun at his head and he staggered forward, Sin following close behind.

“Cap, she’s putting him back in the chair,” Black Widow warned.

“What do we do, Cap?” War Machine asked, his cannon still trained on Sin.

 _I don’t know, I don’t know,_ **_I don’t know!_ **

Bucky was sitting in that awful chair, and Sin dropped the bow and strapped him in haphazardly, lowering the painful mechanical crown over his head. She didn’t give him a mouthguard this time. She was moving to the control panel, and he was going to lose Bucky all over again. He was going to watch it happen, as helpless as he’d been when he’d watched Bucky’s screaming body disappear off the side of that mountain-

_They were walking from the station into the Stark Expo and Steve couldn’t contain his agitation any longer. He was jealous, yes, and angry at the unfairness of the world and his situation, but he was also afraid._

_“What am I gonna do without you, Buck?”_

_He was afraid this would be the last time he’d see Bucky, ever be with him like this. He should be going, too. He should._

_“Probably get punched a hell of a lot more,” Bucky drawled, trying to keep things light. “At least try and remember the stuff I showed you at Goldie’s, huh?”_

_“I’m serious.”_

_Bucky wouldn’t look at him, his eyes were sweeping the crowd for the girls he’d told Steve they were meeting._

_“Yeah, I know,” Bucky sighed, looking down at Steve, lines of worry wrinkling his young face. “But I gotta go. You gotta let me go, Stevie.”_

_Steve looked down at his overlarge shoes. He had to shove newspapers in the toes to keep them from falling off his small feet, but only Bucky knew that._

_“I know. I’m proud of you, Buck.”_

_He looked up just in time to see Bucky look away from him, embarrassed by his praise._

_“Yeah, well, I don’t see what the problem is. You’re about to be the last eligible man in New York.”-_

He had never let Bucky go. Bucky had asked him to, but Steve hadn’t. Not then, not now.

“Widow!”

He was compromised. Time to take it out of his hands.

“You’re in command!”

Black Widow took the shift in her usual stride.

“Falcon, check on Scarlet Witch and Vision! War Machine, cover me! Cap, get Barnes!”

She was sprinting toward Sin, leaping in the air as Sin brought her hand down toward the control panel. Sin registered the change in command a second-and-a-half too late, and she shrieked in fury, spinning the dials and punching buttons erratically.

“If I can’t have him, you can’t either!”

Black Widow tackled her as Bucky screamed and thrashed in the chair. Captain America was dropping his shield without a second thought and running to him, terrified that he’d bite off his own tongue, terrified that his brain would be fried beyond repair, terrified that this time he’d actually have to let Bucky go-

“You’re not strong enough to take me down, bitch!”

Sin kneed Black Widow in the stomach, sending her sprawling.

“Yeah, how about me?”

War Machine grabbed Sin by the back of her red halter top, hauling her to her feet and pinning her arms to her sides. Captain America tried to break the restraints holding Bucky’s left arm, but they were too strong, and the currents of electricity made him yell in pain along with Bucky. He went for the panels over Bucky’s temples.

“Not likely!”

Sin yelled and struggled, rolling War Machine over her shoulders when she broke free of his grasp. Black Widow was already back in the fray, her batons raining blows on Sin as she dived out of the way of Sin’s ripostes. Sin dodged a blast from War Machine’s cannon, the explosion shaking the chamber’s foundations when it hit the rock wall behind her.

Bucky was screaming in Captain America's ear, eyes rolling back as veins popped in his head, and suddenly he wasn’t Captain America anymore. He was just Steve, and this was Bucky, and he was in so much pain, and Steve had to try _harder._ The electricity was excruciating as his hands pulled the apparatus off of Bucky’s head, ripping it from the chair and sending it clattering to the floor. The electricity was gone, Bucky had thankfully stopped screaming, but something was wrong. Steve looked down at Bucky’s face. Bucky stared unseeing, blinking occasionally, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, and Steve couldn’t call his eyes _blank_ anymore. No, Bucky’s eyes were _dead._

“None of you can stop me!”

Steve focused on unstrapping Bucky from the chair. One obstacle at a time. Free Bucky, deal with Sin, and don’t think about those eyes that should be full of life and laughter-

_Your fault, your fault, your fault._

Sin let out a shriek, so different in tone that it made Steve look up. Sin was surrounded by red light, hovering off the ground. He looked to see Scarlet Witch stumbling forward, her fingers flicking strings of that light into the web that crackled around Sin.

“Is that so?”

Removing the arrow from the back of her head had apparently done the trick, and Steve saw Falcon by Vision, sweeping a diagnostic scanner over the synthetic humanoid.

“No!”

Sin writhed and screamed in the Witch’s grasp as she came right up to her, hands dancing around her head. Steve remembered that trick being used against the Avengers years ago, and he shuddered, glad once again that the Scarlet Witch was now on their side.

“What are you afraid of, I wonder, you arrogant little monster?”

The red light receded and Sin fell to the ground whimpering. She scrabbled backward, crab-like, until her shoulders hit one of the cryo chambers.

“Papa?” Sin whispered, horrified yet longing. “Papa, nein, bitte- ”

Her head snapped sharply to the side as if she’d been struck by an invisible assailant, and she crumpled quietly into a fetal position. Steve almost felt sorry for her. Almost, until he finished with the last straps on Bucky’s legs and pulled the deadweight of his friend out of the chair she’d put him in. Bucky’s breathing had gone shallow, and beyond that he wasn’t moving. Steve sat heavily on the ground, pulling Bucky’s head and shoulders into his lap, staring down into blue-grey eyes that couldn’t see him.

“Bucky? C’mon, Buck.”

Grief pricked his eyes, a thousand hot needles he struggled to contain behind his eyelids. His mask felt overbearing and he yanked it off, tearing some of his hair out in the process.

“Cap? Steve?”

Natasha bent down with a coarse grey blanket she’d procured from somewhere, draping it over Bucky to preserve what little dignity he had left as he lay naked in Steve’s arms. Steve looked up at her, one tear managing to slip past his dam.

“Steve,” she looked stricken. “I’m sorry.”

“You did the right thing,” he told her, amazed how he could both believe and not believe the words at the same time. “You made the call I couldn’t. Thank you.”

She nodded, her back straightening.

“War Machine, send out a message. We have to warn Wakanda, if it’s not too late. Falcon, how’s Vision?”

“Stabilizing,” came Sam’s response as Rhodey went to send his message. “He’s transportable, once we get him to the lab he’ll bounce right back.”

Steve tried to be relieved by that news. Sin and Rumlow were incapacitated and they could be brought to trial. There was only one Soldier left to deal with. It hadn’t cost any of the Avengers’ lives. None of his silver friends, only a gold friend who he should have let go seventy-two years ago.

Another tear slipped down his cheek, splashing onto Bucky’s nose. And, oh God, he’d never get to tell Bucky- he’d never get to-

A line of drool was trickling out of the corner of Bucky’s slack mouth, and Steve wiped it away with the edge of the blanket. He was sobbing now, rocking Bucky in his arms, grieving-

He felt a small, gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Let me see what I can do.”

Wanda knelt by Steve’s side, reaching toward Bucky’s forehead, smoothing the hair away and pressing her palm against it. Horrible, fragile hope swelled in Steve’s chest, drying his tears as red light flowed through Wanda and into Bucky. His breathing remained shallow, but his skin shivered and his eyes closed. They sat there for several minutes, until Wanda looked up sadly.

“I can’t- I can’t _find_ him in there. I’m so sorry.”

She’d left her hand on Bucky’s head. Steve swallowed hard. He should have known. He should have known better than to hope. He bent his head, resting it on the back of Wanda’s hand, kissing Bucky’s forehead between her fingers. He didn’t care who saw.

“I’m gonna take care of you, Buck,” he promised fiercely. “Even if you never come back to me, I’m gonna- ”

He felt Wanda jolt with surprise and he looked up into her wide eyes.

“Oh! Oh, Steve, I- I felt something.”

She pressed her other palm against Bucky’s forehead, beside the first. More red light surged, lighting Wanda’s determined face.

“Keep- keep talking to him! I’m going to go inside- ”

Her glowing eyes rolled up until there was only white. Like something from one of those bad horror movies Tony had made Steve watch two Halloweens ago.

“Keep talking to him!”

Her voice echoed both in his eardrums and inside his mind, and he hastily obeyed.

“Bucky? Bucky, I- I don’t know what to say. I- I’ve missed you so much, Buck, and I- I tried to let you go. I tried so fucking hard, but I couldn't, so- please. Please come back to me.”

Wanda had gone silent, her white eyes staring beyond anything Steve could see, but he felt Bucky shudder in his lap.

“Come back, Bucky. Don’t leave me. Not again. ‘Cause you know I’ll just follow you. I followed you to Europe, and I followed you into the next life when I thought you’d gone there. Turned out you didn’t go there, so I followed you back from that, too. Everyone thinks _you_ were the one always following after me back then, but that’s not true. It never was.”

“Na,” Wanda said softly, but Steve knew she wasn’t talking to him. “Il’sa’eer. Atchava.”

“I love you, Bucky Barnes. I think I’ve always loved you, before I even knew what that meant. So don’t you dare leave me, asshole. Not now, please. Not now that I know I love you.”

Steve didn’t care who heard. He didn’t care who knew.

“Wake up, Bucky. Wake up and come home with me.”

Slowly, miraculously, Bucky’s eyes opened as Wanda drew her hands away. Bucky blinked, squinting up into Steve’s face, and there was life there. Life, and recognition, and Steve felt like he could float away inside Bucky’s eyes.

“Steve,” a tiny smile curled Bucky’s lips. “Hey, Steve.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” Steve choked, more needles in his eyes. “I’m here.”

“He- he’s gone,” there was a mixture of wonder, fear, and relief in Bucky’s voice. “I can’t hear him anymore. He’s gone.”

Steve didn’t quite understand, but he tried to be encouraging.

“Yeah?”

But something shifted in Bucky’s eyes. Fond recognition turned to horror and shame as Bucky struggled in Steve’s arms, and Steve reluctantly let him go. Bucky sat up, away from Steve and Wanda, clutching the blanket tightly over his body, looking around the room and at all the others. His face darkened.

“Oh, God. Oh, fuck, Steve, I- ”

It was at this moment that Rhodey re-entered the chamber. He wasn’t alone.

“Hey guys,” Tony Stark’s voice boomed out from Iron Man’s helmet. “Sorry I’m late, but it looks like you didn’t need our help after all.”

As if on cue, several special forces units from every branch of the U.S. military swarmed through the open door behind him.


	16. Interlude: Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A few Wanda interludes before I get back to the main action. I know I left it on a cliffhanger, but I also need to write what went on inside Bucky's head during the last chapter, and I need Wanda's backstory and perspective for that.
> 
> Also, I adore Wanda Maximoff with the burning fire of a thousand suns, so...)

* * *

_“There’s magic in the world, little one,”_ Wanda’s mother used to tell her. _“Never forget that.”_

Magda would speak Romany inside their apartment but never outside. Outside it was only Sokovian, or English, and Wanda learned from an early age the parts of herself that needed to be kept secret. Her mother was good at keeping secrets. Her biggest secret was the identity of Wanda and Pietro’s birth father. Magda had taken that secret to her grave.

It wasn’t that Django Maximoff hadn’t been a wonderful stepfather, because he had, and Wanda could never imagine a better father. She remembered playing hide-and-seek with him in her formative years, in those early days before the bombs fell regularly in Novi Grad. Django wasn’t a great hider, though in retrospect Wanda supposed he’d done that on purpose, to make her and Pietro feel good about themselves. Both she and her twin were excellent at hiding, but Wanda was always the best at finding. No matter where Django, Pietro, or Magda were hiding, Wanda just _knew._

_“There’s magic in the world, little one. There’s magic in you.”_

The magic went away when Wanda was ten years old. They were all eating dinner, chicken soup and Manriklo spiced with rosemary and dill. Pietro made an asinine comment about Django’s favorite football team, just for the sake of starting an argument, and he and Django were getting into it with good-humored tenacity while Magda and Wanda laughed and rolled their eyes. That was Wanda’s last memory of her mother. Dark hair wild, brown eyes bright with mirth, laughing around a mouthful of the flatbread she’d kissed before eating, as she always did for tradition’s sake.

When the first shell hit, it took out the side of the apartment where Magda and Django were sitting. Both of them, the table, and the kitchenette disappeared into the smoking debris, falling ten stories out of sight. While Wanda gaped, not understanding, not _wanting_ to understand, Pietro was already in motion. He’d always been quicker. He’d often won at hide-and-seek when he’d managed to beat her back to the corner designated as homebase.

Wanda found herself in Pietro’s arms underneath the large family bed as the building shook and fell to pieces around them, and she opened her mouth to wail with fear and grief-

 _“Hush,_ miri pena _,”_ Pietro’s brown eyes were saucers, staring in horror at something behind her. _“Stay very still.”_

She twisted her neck to look. There was another shell resting on the floor beside the bed, so very close. It hadn’t gone off, it was just sitting there. Sleek and shining, she might have thought it beautiful if she didn’t know what it would do to her and her brother if it decided to perform its function. There were five legible letters painted on the side. They held no significance to her at the time, but they would come to.

It was nearly fourteen hours later when they heard rescue teams and Pietro dared to raise his voice and call for help. It was nearly twenty-nine hours after that when they were finally out of their Hell. Every time the bricks moved, the floorboards creaked, or the dust drifted like snowflakes from the ceiling as the rescuers attempted to reach them, Wanda was certain that shell was going to go off. At that point her death seemed so inevitable that it hardly raised her heartbeat, although she could hear Pietro’s pounding against her chest and the sweat rolled off both of them in buckets.

The shell didn’t go off, of course, but when Wanda’s feet hit the street outside, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders by a hollow-eyed volunteer, and her hand never unclutching from Pietro’s, she could still barely believe it. It took weeks for her to stop feeling like she was in that room, under that bed with her brother, staring at the instrument of death with STARK emblazoned on its side as it stared back at her like a hungry wolf-

Even now, almost ten years later, there were some days she had the overpowering feeling that she was about to wake up in that room, underneath that bed. The feeling usually passed quickly, but sometimes that was worse for her, and she would chase after it until it slipped from her mind’s grasp. It was counterintuitive, to cling to such a horrible thought, but she knew why she did. She did, because if she woke up in that room, at least Pietro would be there with her.

She missed Pietro. It had been so bad at first, right after the destruction of Sokovia, when she felt like the energies inside her would burn her from the inside out with her grief. With the help of her new family, especially Clint, Steve, and Vision, she’d quelled the blaze to a manageable flicker. She could sense a similar grief from other members of the team, especially Steve and Sam, flickering up and down, around and inside them, and she couldn’t _not_ see it no matter how hard she tried to shut her power off.

_You were right, Daia. There is magic in the world, but it’s not always wonderful._

*

It took seven years after her parents’ death for the magic to come back. Seven years of anger and pain. Wanda and Pietro floated between foster homes and poorly-funded government institutions until they ran away from the system at fourteen. Nobody searched too diligently for them. Sokovia had been declining steadily in those four years. A new foreign force was marching through the streets of Novi Grad every week. When it wasn’t Russia, it was Albania, S.H.I.E.L.D., or NATO. Living on the streets, Wanda and Pietro took up with a group of freedom fighters. They’d start riots, trying to push the invaders out. They left every riot with bruises, lungs full of tear gas, and hearts growing heavier, but they never ended up in prison, like some of their fellow protesters. They were good at running, and even better at hiding.

Pietro became an excellent thief. _“A walking stereotype,”_ Wanda would grouse. _“What would_ Daia _and_ Dad _say?”_ But she acknowledged the necessity of having money for food, and for warm clothes during the winter months.

Pietro had saved a ragged picture of their family from the apartment. A portrait Magda had insisted they take when the twins were eight. They were all in their best clothes, smiling in the modern way. Pietro liked to look at it when he woke up in the morning, kissing Magda and Django’s images before tucking the photograph into the pocket of his jacket, then kissing Wanda on the forehead and hitting the streets to provide for them in the only way he knew how.

Wanda had her own skills. She was good at putting people at ease, with her small frame, pretty face, and big green eyes. She used her upbringing to swindle people in the marketplaces, hating herself but tamping down her self-loathing to get the job done. Superstitious Sokovians, and the rare-but-lucrative tourists, hardly ever walked past a _“genuine Gypsy fortune-teller,”_ especially not one that looked like her. Wanda dressed herself in flowing robes made from thrown-out carpets and wrapped her head in a scarf. She read palms, tarot cards, and tea leaves. She swirled her hands over the milky glass of someone’s discarded lawn ornament, making up bullshit as she subtly read her customers as easily as the back of a cereal box.

 _“And_ **_I’m_ ** _the walking stereotype?”_

_“Shut up, Pietro. You’re just upset that I make more money than you.”_

By the time they were sixteen, the foreign armies had slowed their movements through Sokovia. There were still incidents, but it became a matter of once a month rather than every few days, and Wanda and Pietro took up with a different group. They’d never connected much with anybody in the first group on a personal level. They had each other, and that was enough.

This new group was of interest to them because of its anti-Avenger activism. Wanda and Pietro were only too happy to join in protests against the superhero team led by their hated Tony Stark. In this group they met Zrinka and her little brother Costel. Zrinka was over a year older than they were, Costel almost seven years younger, orphaned under similar circumstances as the Maximoffs. Wanda watched Pietro and Zrinka develop feelings for each other; watched as Pietro set aside designer clothes and handbags he’d stolen as gifts for her. He would pointedly ignore Wanda’s comments about that, so she stopped trying. It was good, she admitted grudgingly to herself, that Pietro had someone else in his life besides her. She tried not to be jealous. Zrinka was nice, even if she and Wanda had nothing in common, and Costel was a sweet boy with whom Wanda enjoyed playing.

Months passed. At an Avengers protest, after an incident in Novi Grad with Tony Stark’s supposed peace-keeping robot swarm, Wanda and Pietro met Dr. List. He went before the crowd, speaking through a megaphone about a new age, where any of them could be given powers to rival Iron Man, Captain America, or even Thor and the Hulk.

 _“The power is already inside you,”_ List exhorted the crowd. _“If you have the courage to let me unlock it!”_

Wanda was skeptical, but Pietro was excited at this new prospect.

 _“We could be part of our own Avengers,”_ he told Wanda, eyes shining with excitement. _“We could kick their asses back to America the next time they dare to show up in Europe!”_

Most of the protesters dispersed after List’s speech, as skeptical as Wanda. Zrinka was among them, physically dragging Costel away from the square, ignoring his shrill indignation at being denied the chance at superpowers.

_“You sound like a child, Pietro.”_

Wanda waved her hand at the retreating Zrinka and Costel for emphasis.

 _“Perhaps that child is the wisest of us all,”_ Pietro countered mulishly. _“Come,_ miri pena. _Let’s just talk to the man. Please?”_

Wanda saw how much this meant to Pietro. How passion had arisen anew in her brother, who had always been so good to her. How he wanted to share this with Wanda; her, and not Zrinka.

_“Fine, we can talk to him.”_

They joined the handful of people who had stayed to hear more of the doctor’s pitch. He told them all to come to the old military fortress in the hills outside of Novi Grad the following morning, handing out cards with the information printed clearly on front and back. Wanda thought she saw something spark in List’s eyes when Pietro took the card, telling List of his interest and mentioning that he and Wanda were twins. Wanda thought she saw a clinical curiosity, like one might have for an anomalous cadaver. A _hungry_ curiosity that made her shiver.

 _“Please, Wanda?”_ Pietro asked her that night in their hovel, making plans to hitch a ride to the fortress early the next morning. _“Don’t make me do this alone.”_

Of course she wouldn’t. She couldn’t.

So she didn’t.

*

There were twenty-three volunteers including Wanda and Pietro. Most of them were young men, but there were a few older men and young women, including a mother and her twelve-year-old son. They were given forms to sign as soon as they walked into the lobby of the intimidating fortress. In retrospect, Wanda knew that once they’d entered there was no chance they would have been allowed to leave, but the volunteer forms gave HYDRA one more trump card. One more illusion of choice in the nightmare they were all about to find themselves in.

She began to suspect immediately that the fortress, with its sprawling maze of labs and storage space, was HYDRA-operated. She couldn’t give a concrete reason _why._ Like many things in her life that she had no explanation for, she just knew.

 _“No,”_ Pietro scoffed when she whispered her concerns to him as they walked down an intimidating corridor. _“How do you know?”_

 _“I just do,”_ she was annoyed by her inability to justify herself. _“Pietro, please, let’s get out of here. HYDRA- well, historically they have no use for people like us beyond the gas chambers.”_

_“Is everything alright back there?”_

The young man in the lab coat who had met them in the lobby and taken their forms and I.D. cards looked over his shoulder at the whispering twins.

 _“Yes, it’s my sister,”_ Pietro raised his voice, trying to ameliorate. _“She’s frightened.”_

 _“No need to be frightened,”_ said the man in the lab coat with blatantly false kindness. _“Come along now, it’s just ahead.”_

Later, to comfort herself through the pain and the grief, Wanda told herself that even if Pietro had believed her, they would still have ended up in those cells. It might even have been worse if he _had_ listened. He might have tried to fight back, right there in the hallway, and they’d soon seen what fighting back resulted in.

When the volunteers reached the lab at the end of the corridor, they were wrestled into adjoining cells by uniformed guards with tentacled red pins on their chests. It took two men to get Wanda inside hers as she struggled, screamed, and kicked. It took four to contain Pietro, even with how skinny he was. Some of the stronger men were beaten with batons that crackled with electricity as they fought back.

 _“You should have read the fine print,”_ their lab-coated guide sneered at them when they were all locked up. _“But don’t worry, if you survive, you will get what you were promised.”_

Staring through the thick glass of her cell, designed almost like a zoo exhibit, Wanda thought about what she’d signed up for. _“Superpowers”_ Pietro and Costel had believed, but Wanda was still skeptical.

 _“I’m sorry, Wanda,”_ Pietro called to her from the cell directly to her right. His voice was full of despair. _“I’m so sorry.”_

 _“We’ll get through this,”_ Wanda assured him, trying to believe herself. _“We’ll get through this like we always do. Together.”_

_“Together.”_

Less than an hour later, Dr. List entered the lab and began taking the prisoners out with him one at a time. He started with one of the younger men, in his mid-twenties Wanda guessed. It took six guards with stun batons to get him in line, but eventually he was half-marched, half-dragged through another door and out of sight. It only took minutes for his screams to echo back to the remaining twenty-two. Screams of horror and pain that faded eventually. He never came back.

One by one, List took his guinea pigs away. Only a few returned, dragged unconscious back to their cells; two young men, one old man, and one young woman. Finally, only the mother, her son, Wanda, and Pietro remained. List looked between the four of them for a long time, sinister contemplation on his wrinkled face.

“We’ll do these last four in pairs,” List informed the young man who had led them here. “Starting with the mother and child.”

The woman and her son were pulled from their respective cells, clutching each other weeping as they were led to the other room. When the screams died, only the boy was brought back, carried in the arms of a guard. Everyone’s attention was then focused on Wanda and Pietro. Wanda steeled herself.

_“Do we fight?”_

Pietro sounded so lost.

 _“There is no point,_ mira pral. _Take my hand, and we will go with our heads held high.”_

The guards flanked them, hands on their shoulders, but it was apparent they were going quietly so they weren’t harmed any further. Pietro glared at everyone who made eye contact with him, but Wanda allowed her mind to drift as she held her brother’s hand and walked beyond the door through which so many had gone and so few had returned. She was remembering Magda’s laughter, and Django throwing her in the air above his head when she’d been young enough to be thrilled by it. She was remembering Pietro dashing by her to win at hide-and-seek while she shrieked at him to stop and let _her_ win, and she knew, if there was a Heaven, what hers would look like.

Behind the door was another, smaller lab with another cell-like chamber behind thick observational glass. The guards took them into the small chamber, strapping them into two metal chairs at one end of it. The chairs were close together, close enough that each twin could stretch their fingertips to touch the other’s, and that was a small comfort. Wanda tried not to think about how many people had been strapped in these chairs before them. About how many people had died where she now sat.

“Blood relations,” she heard List saying as the guards exited the chamber. “The previous results were disappointing, but we’ll see how twin siblings respond to- ”

The door slammed shut and all outside sound was cut off. All Wanda could hear was her heavy breathing mingling with Pietro’s. The chamber was lined with metal panels on three sides, as well as a metal floor and ceiling. After a moment, a panel in the center of the wall across from them opened and a strange device glowed blue inside the darkness beyond it. Wanda stared at it, terrified and intrigued, as it began to hum, glowing brighter. She refused to look away or blink, the last form of rebellion left to her. Her fingers twitched against her brother’s.

_“I love you, Pietro.”_

_“I love you, too.”_

Blue light surged into the chamber, shooting at them like a laser from one of the science fiction movies they’d watched with Django as children. Wanda felt her eyes watering, but she only closed them when the pain from the light’s impact became nearly unbearable. She was aware she was screaming, and she could hear Pietro screaming, too. The light was around her, _inside_ her, and it was so bright that she could see it through her clenched eyelids. Her fingertips never left Pietro’s.

 _It hurts, make it stop! It hurts, make it stop!_ **_It hurts, make it stop!_ **

She didn’t know how long it went on, but she eventually became aware of hands on her, dragging her, putting her on a lumpy surface that turned out to be the cot inside her original cell.

 _“Pietro,”_ she moaned and tried to sit up, but pain thrummed through her, nausea roiling in her stomach. _“Where is my brother?”_

 _“He is unconscious, but he survived,”_ Wanda managed to open her eyes to see List speaking to her through the glass, not soundproof as the other had been. _“You both did. I’m so pleased.”_

They were like his pets, she realized. His fascinating creations, and she was afraid. Perhaps it would have been better if they hadn’t survived. Or, at least if _she_ hadn’t. Her head spun, the nausea overpowering her, and she rolled her face over the side of the cot just in time to vomit on the concrete floor instead of on herself before the world receded into darkness.

Her dreams were red, full of strange, nameless gods and monsters. She didn’t wake up for two days.


	17. Interlude: Red, Part 2

* * *

The other prisoners died over the next week. First the old man, then the woman, then the two men. The boy died last, crying for his mother the whole time, and Wanda’s heart broke even as she clapped her hands over her ears and prayed that he would stop. When the guards removed his body, she felt horribly guilty for her relief at the quiet.

_ “My skin is buzzing, Wanda! Do you feel it, too?” _

Pietro would talk to her through the wall separating their cells. It was comforting to hear him, even with the pain and fear in his voice.

_ “No,” _ Wanda answered.  _ “But my eyes burn and my head pounds. Are these the superpowers you wanted?” _

She didn’t mean to sound so bitter, but it was difficult to be patient when the drumming in her skull increased with each passing day. It hurt, and even when her exhaustion allowed her respite from the pain, she was plagued by disturbing dreams that left her as tired when she woke as she’d been before sleeping. Dreams that escalated in their vividness, merging with her memories-

**_"Why is this night different from all other nights?"_ **

_ Magda asked her solemnly, which was all wrong, because that was Wanda’s question to ask, and then to answer at Magda’s prompting. Django and Magda played fast and loose with the tenets of their faith, except during Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Hanukkah, and Passover.  _

_ (“Why don’t I get to ask?” Pietro would inevitably gripe to one of their parents. “Because you are older,” was always the response, which made Pietro sulk. As the firstborn, even by a few minutes, Pietro’s duty would have been to fast the day before Passover began, but Django always fasted in his place every year, until- ) _

_ As Wanda’s response to her mother formed on her tongue  _ **_(saltwater, unleavened bread, bitter herbs, reclining)_ ** _ she realized that Magda was wrong here. Her mother was clothed in red. Not dressed in red clothes, but in  _ **_red_ ** _ itself, and her skin was red and her eyes were red and Wanda wanted to scream but she knew if she did the scream would be red, too- _

Her eyes opened, the redness tinting the world for a long moment before it receded. She heard Pietro moving in his cell. Fast. Too fast. Hitting the wall, yelling. Yelling for Wanda, for their mother, for Zrinka, for  _ someone _ to help him. Wanda tried to call to him, but her throat was dry and she could barely let out a squeak. She sat up on her cot, pressed against the wall separating her from her twin. She put her hands against the stone, slapping it weakly until her nails broke and her fingers bled. Her hands were so frail, cracked with dehydration, and she paused her ineffectual assault with palms pressed against the unyielding wall. She stared at them momentarily, utterly transfixed, as if she’d never seen them before, and as she did she felt the burning pressure in her brain shift. It surged through her body, painful, yes, but also exhilarating. There was red in her eyes. The red  _ was _ her eyes.

The red was  _ her. _

She was briefly aware of shouting outside her cell before the red became black-

_ She knew she was dreaming this time. It looked like her Heaven, the familiar scape of her childhood apartment, but she knew it wasn’t. Magda was not Magda, Django wasn’t there at all, and whenever she focused on little Pietro he seemed to phase in and out of existence. They weren’t her family, but still she knew them, if not by their exact names. _

**_“What do you want from me?”_ **

_ Wanda asked the creatures masquerading as her loved ones with steady clarity, and they both regarded her impassively. Not-Pietro looked to Not-Magda, and their form flickered between diminutive toddler and some immeasurable monstrosity with green scales and several red-eyed heads that moved too quickly and sinuously for Wanda to count. _

**_“To help you, child,”_ ** _ Not-Magda’s eyes were red, but they otherwise appeared so much like Wanda’s mother that she wanted to cling to them and never let go.  _ **_“To give you power beyond your wildest dreams.”_ **

_ She knew what to say to that. She’d watched this scene play out a thousand times in Django’s favorite movies. _

**_“I don’t want it. Give it to someone else.”_ **

_ Not-Magda cocked their head slightly, a faint sneer on their lips when they responded. _

**_“You do want it, child. I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. You want power. You want control. Not over others, but over your own self. Over your own life.”_ **

_ Wanda thought of her life, hers and Pietro’s. The turmoil and the tragedy. Control was an idea that tantalized her. And with power, with control, came other prospects. Revenge flashed in her mind, fiery rage and the neatly painted letters that formed STARK. An instrument of death? Stark and his Avengers hadn’t  _ **_seen_ ** _ a true instrument of death- _

**_“And you can give me that?”_ **

_ She felt the question slip out before she’d thought it through. The creature was right, and she hated herself for being tempted. Not-Magda didn’t answer her, but they smiled with her mother’s mouth. Wanda saw too-many teeth in that mouth, unnaturally white and inhumanly sharp, and behind them stretched a vast, grey void like ashes in the bottom of a trash barrel. The void wanted her, and it was horrifying. _

**_“No,”_ ** _ she said, trembling.  _ **_“I don’t want it.”_ **

**_“You will,”_ ** _ Not-Magda warned her with quiet anger.  _ **_“But you have chosen chaos. On your own head be it.”_ **

_ Not-Pietro made a gleeful hissing noise and Wanda watched the writhing shapes dance inside her brother’s form. The hissing grew louder, louder, unbearably loud, and she clapped her hands over her ears as she fell to her knees. Not-Magda was gone, and then so was Not-Pietro and everything else with them. Everything except the sound of hissing and the sight of red- _

When Wanda woke there was an IV in the back of her right hand, and the sharp discomfort of it was almost worse than the pain of her headaches. Her hands had been bandaged as well, after striking the wall. She was in a different cell, similar enough to the first that she might not have noticed right away if not for the view outside the glass wall. This lab was smaller, and darker. The idea that she’d been moved,  _ touched, _ while she was unconscious and in this thin hospital gown they’d given her, made her sick with fear and anger. She sat up in her new cot, scratching at the medical tape on her hand, scenes from her dream flashing in her mind.

_ “Ah, Miss Maximoff, you’re awake.” _

Dr. List’s voice crackled over a hidden speaker in her cell. She couldn’t see him, like some horrible stinging insect buzzing in the hidden corners of a room, and the smug joy in his tone made her want to break something. Preferably his face.

There was a crash to her left, and she jumped, her head whirling to see the source of the noise. Tendrils of red were fading from her vision, and she suddenly realized there was no more pain in her head or her eyes. There was only that exhilaration as she saw the overturned tray of food by the heavily bolted cell door, and she knew that  _ she _ had done it.

_ “Very good, Miss Maximoff,” _ List went on.  _ “I’m so pleased with your progress. Yours, and your brother’s.” _

_ “Pietro,” _ Wanda breathed, her dream solidifying in her memory.  _ “Where is he? Pietro!” _

_ “Your brother is fine. He’s right next to you, but he can’t hear you. Your accommodations are soundproof. You can see him, eventually, if you behave, but don’t try anything funny with those fantastic new abilities. We are bombarding you with a low frequency dampener that prevents you from moving anything beyond the confines of your room.” _

Wanda’s heart sank as she reached out with her mind and found the HYDRA doctor’s words to be true. He had the best kind of leverage against her. He had Pietro.

_ “What- what does he- what can he do?” _

She waited with morbid curiosity for List’s response. It took an intolerably long moment for the speaker to crackle with his answer.

_ “He can move very quickly now, Miss Maximoff. Superhumanly fast. It’s amazing, how differently you both manifested. The only successes of this experiment.” _

He spoke with wonder, and she remembered that they were nothing more than his creations. Lab rats locked away until they died. She was a fool for spitting in what had been, she now fully comprehended, an elder god’s face. It would have been their only way out of this nightmare-

_ No,  _ she thought fiercely.  _ We will get out of this. _

_ “If you behave, if you both behave, you and your brother may see each other very soon,” _ List continued in her silence.  _ “You will come to find that we have similar goals. The fall of the Avengers, for one.” _

She said nothing. She could play along. Figure out the extent of what she and Pietro could do. Use that to escape. And if that happened to mean getting revenge on the man who killed her parents, and his band of superhuman fascists, well, she could live with that.

_ “Do I have your cooperation, Miss Maximoff?” _

Wanda rose stiffly, staring out into the lab beyond the glass wall of her cell. A few scientists and technicians moved around as lights flashed and computer monitors glowed. All of it paled to the red fire burning behind her eyes.

_ “Yes,” _ she agreed aloud.

_ I’ll kill you myself, _ she vowed silently.

Making a deal with this devil was preferable to the one in her dreams. List was evil, but she could wrap her head around his evil. She couldn’t see him at the moment, but unlike the other creature she knew that his teeth were flat and yellowed, and when he opened his mouth to praise her decision, she knew the inside was pink and finite.

Through all of it, Wanda never took time to process the staggering, miraculous  _wonder_ of it all. She had superpowers. She could move things with her mind, and maybe more, but she didn't have the luxury of letting it give her pause. She'd been one thing when she went to sleep, and now she was another. Her whole life was change. Once, she'd had a family, then she'd been an orphan. Foster homes and government facilities blurred together, as did the faces of most of her freedom fighter compatriots. Accepting change meant survival. Survival was all she and Pietro knew.

_You chose chaos._

She was afraid of meeting that creature again when she slept, but she needn’t have worried. In the weeks that followed, weeks that became years without her really noticing, she never saw that monster with her mother’s face again.

*

Strangely enough it was Iron Man that ended up killing List, over two years after the Maximoffs had walked unwittingly into the HYDRA fortress.

In that time, their powers had expanded. Both had agreed to cooperate with List in exchange for visits with the other. Both had gaped at the other when they’d been permitted out of their cells under heavy guard and seen each other for the first time since the room with the blue light. It had been months at that point, and Wanda barely recognized her own twin. Pietro was shockingly gaunt, and she could feel his bones under his pale skin when they embraced. His brown hair was now so blond it was almost white, and his brown eyes had turned an icy blue. Wanda was just as emaciated, but Pietro assured her that her eyes were still as green as they’d ever been.

_ “Because- because you’re a freak.” _

He teased her weakly, just like he had when they were kids, and she managed to smile for the first time in what felt like forever as she squeezed his hand.

_ “We’re both freaks now,” _ she told him.  _ “Did they tell you what I can do?” _

As she spoke to him, she reached out to his mind with her own. List, and the parade of HYDRA scientists and bureaucrats he brought in to observe the twins, were focused on the telekinetic aspects of her powers. She hadn’t told them of the other things she could do. Not only could she use her mind to fling furniture or fuse the molecules of simple objects together, but she could feel the fear of the people in her vicinity when she did.

_ “Yes,  _ miri pena.”

Pietro’s mind was a mess of anger, fear, shame, and guilt. It wasn’t like telepathy as she’d always thought of it, not like opening a book and reading a paragraph. It was more like a puzzle. A puzzle she  _ felt _ rather than saw. When she reached out and felt Pietro’s mind, when she impulsively tried to put his pieces together to soothe him, he jerked away from her in a blur, stopping on the other side of the room, staring at her wide-eyed.

_ “What the hell?” _

The guards shifted restlessly at the sudden movement, guns and frequency dampeners clutched tighter as they pointed at the twins. Wanda stared back at her brother, silently pleading with him not to reveal her secret, and whether it was her power or their bond, he understood and said nothing.

_ “Easy, guys,” _ Pietro put up his hands and moved slowly back toward Wanda, the ghost of one of his rakish grins on his lips as he mocked the guards’ reaction.  _ “I’m not going anywhere. Just had an itch, didn’t handle it well.” _

One of the guards snorted, but they all visibly relaxed. Pietro cautiously took Wanda’s hand again, and she reached out to his mind more carefully. She was a guest here. She knew she could play with the pieces if she wanted to, but she didn’t want to. She’d save that for others.

They stood there for the remaining five minutes of their visit, Pietro letting Wanda sneak around the edges of his thoughts, and Wanda making sure they were on the same page in regards to their escape. Cooperate; earn their trust. The both nodded grimly at the other before they were led back to their cells.

In the next few months Pietro managed to break the sound barrier and Wanda managed to throw a sixty-ton tank 1.5 meters, though the accomplishments left each of them drained. Months after that they learned with secret joy of both HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D.’s undoing. That was when they were first introduced to Baron von Strucker, the leader of the base they were imprisoned in and one of the highest ranking HYDRA members left. They played along with his plans for them, growing stronger, and they were allowed a measure of freedom outside of their cells. Strucker soon had them training for combat against the Avengers. Wanda was frightened by how excited Strucker was at the prospect, and Pietro, too. She was most afraid of her own excitement for it.

_ You’re playing into their hands, _ she told herself when she allowed herself to think clearly.  _ You might as well say “Hail, HYDRA” with the rest of them. _

**_No. Never. We are not them. I am not them._ **

Her dreams had faded to distant recollections, but she remembered enough. She’d long decided that the creatures had been figments of her pain-addled imagination. Leftover gods from the stories her mother had told her before bed. Not real. Only this was real. This world, and her place in it. She  _ did _ want power. Power, and vengeance, but on her own terms.

When the Avengers came, storming the fortress in a blaze of violence, Wanda and Pietro made their move without Strucker or List. Pietro raced outside, and Wanda waited inside, her mantra of vengeance pounding scarlet in her head. Stark, List, Strucker, and any other Avenger who got in the way. In that order, as painfully as possible.

She found Strucker and Captain America first, and after throwing the Avenger down a staircase, she decided not to pursue either of them further. She wanted Stark foremost, and he was so close she could feel him. Let the fascist pigs fight it out amongst themselves.

She found Iron Man in List’s private lab. He’d taken her revenge on List from her, the doctor lying dead behind a desk with a smoking crater in his chest. It didn’t matter, she told herself as she moved in for the kill. Eight long years, and she finally had STARK in her grasp, and she wasn’t a terrified child anymore. She was all grown up, and it was  _ his _ turn to be afraid.

Wanda didn’t hold back as she cloaked herself from Stark’s perception and came up beside him. Stark had frozen in front of the alien relic that had given the Maximoffs their powers and so many others their painful deaths. He was gazing up at the corpse of the alien behemoth that List had been dissecting and studying even longer than he’d had his hands on the twins. The puzzle of Stark’s mind was complex, but Wanda zeroed in on the fear. He was afraid of a surprising many things, from abandonment to overdose, but at the moment he was most afraid of the dead alien creature above them. Strange, but she could use it, and she plucked at pieces of that fear-

She saw flashes of the other Avengers, dead in an invasion of the same kind of aliens that had attacked New York all those years ago. She saw Captain America, and Stark’s fear of failing him, which was somehow tied into failing his father, and all of humanity, too.

_ Your fault, _ Stark’s mind screamed at him, and her by proxy,  _ Your fault, stop it, you can, you can, open the staff, save the world, your fault if you don’t stop it- _

It was overwhelming, and she pulled her red tendrils away. She remembered the fear and pain contained in the blue light of that relic. The thought of Stark experiencing it, dying in agony in a misguided attempt to save the world, made her smile.

Wanda felt Pietro’s approach, and shielded him from Stark’s perception when he arrived at her side. She felt Pietro’s anger, picked up a flash of the underside of their childhood bed as they waited to die together. She put a hand on his chest.  _ Let him kill himself, mira pral. It will be so much sweeter if he kills himself. _

Pietro wasn’t happy when Wanda let Stark take the relic and leave otherwise unharmed, but he didn’t argue with her. He might be older, but only by a few minutes, and Wanda was so certain of what she was doing. She couldn’t stop smiling as she and Pietro made their way out of the ruins of the fortress and back to Novi Grad.

She’d been wrong, she knew now. Wrong about Stark, the Avengers, Ultron, all of it. She’d been wrong, and Pietro had paid the price. He’d saved Costel and Clint, and she’d felt him die, shredded by bullets that also destroyed the picture of their family he’d held onto for so many years. She firmly believed that it should have been her, and not him. She was sure she would believe it until the day she died.

Ironically, it was the Avengers who saved her, took her in and gave her a family, once she made sure Zrinka and Costel received visas and a work permit in France. Vision saved her life in Novi Grad, Clint and Steve forgave her easily. Sam and Rhodey accepted her quickly, though she hadn’t hurt them directly. She and Tony had reached a mutual understanding, although they still danced awkwardly around each other. Friendly, but with the unspoken acknowledgement of how the other had hurt them, forgiving to the best of their ability. Natasha had been more difficult, her emotions the most guarded of the Avengers. Wanda hadn’t had a chance to make amends with Thor or Dr. Banner before they’d left, and she knew there was some history between Natasha and Banner.

“I don’t blame you, you know,” Nat told her apropos of nothing, two months after the destruction of Sokovia, when they were the last two in the training room. “For what you did. I’ve done way worse.”

The flashes Wanda received were not of the Black Widow’s past sins, however, but of a blame that Natasha couldn’t help but feel because of other feelings she had tied to someone else.

“I’m sorry,” Wanda repeated. “For what I did to you, but also what I did to him. What I made him do.”

Nat looked at her, her face a carefully-trained mask of calm.

“Bruce didn’t leave because of you, Wanda. He left because of me.”

With the admission, Wanda felt something slip from Natasha’s mind. A puzzle piece the guarded woman no longer needed to hold onto.

“It wouldn’t have worked out,” Nat continued, voice tinged with relief. “I don’t think we really loved each other. It was a heat of the moment, battlefield romance.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Wanda shrugged, self-deprecating. “I’ve never had any kind of romance.”

She wasn’t sure if she would ever want one, but the way Natasha looked at her then, the same way she looked at Steve when she was trying to set him up with one of her acquaintances, made Wanda feel as if she were finally a full member of the team.

She chose her codename that night. As she did, she wondered what codename Pietro would have chosen for himself.


	18. Interlude: Red, Final Part

* * *

When Falcon pulled the arrow from the back of her head, Wanda felt her motor functions return. Her muscles ached from whatever the arrow had done to her, but she assured Falcon that she was fine, and implored him to check on Vision as he helped her to her feet. She was already stumbling back into the fray, watching the redheaded woman she’d seen in the files dodge attacks from Black Widow and War Machine. She knew she should focus on taking down the immediate threat of Schmidt, but she was distracted by her worries about Vision, as well as the tableau of Captain America frantically trying to free his screaming, naked friend from the sinister chair in the center of the chamber. There were too many puzzle pieces flashing all around for her to concentrate, and her head and body ached.

“None of you can stop me!”

Schmidt screamed in a frenzy, throwing Black Widow away from her, and ducking a blast from War Machine that made the whole room shake in a way that made the Scarlet Witch feel like a little girl in a bombed-out Sokovian apartment. Her mind embraced the trauma, then let it reform into her red power. Into purpose. Into anger.

War Machine wasn’t messing around; he was shooting to kill. The Witch could play with those stakes, but she wouldn’t kill Schmidt. She would only make Schmidt  _ wish _ she were dead. Red flowed from her to Schmidt, holding the other woman in place, lifting her a few centimeters off the ground. Schmidt screamed with frightened rage, twisting her neck to look at the Scarlet Witch, who smirked at her captive.

“Is that so?”

Schmidt’s was the only puzzle that mattered at the moment, and Wanda staggered toward her, binding her tighter with strings of red. Schmidt’s mind was a mess. Pain, fear, anger, and deep, deep hatred. Hatred of  _ Wanda. _ Hatred of her people, of her family, of her friends. A hatred, and an evil, that Wanda had never truly seen or comprehended before this moment. Not from any other HYDRA agent, or even from Ultron. It scared Wanda, but it also invigorated her. She was an Avenger. Time to avenge.

**_I_ ** _ will stop you, _ she silently informed Schmidt as she delved deeper into the woman’s mind.  _ I will stop you, and you will live to know that your downfall came at the hands of a Jewish-Romani girl whose power your own foolish HYDRA helped unlock. _

“No!”

Schmidt screamed in horror, twisting in mid-air as the Scarlet Witch came to her side. Wanda’s hands moved of their own accord, playing with this new puzzle.

_ Yes. _

Wanda felt Schmidt’s fear of her immediate defeat, but underneath that fear was another, and Wanda pulled at it. This fear was deep-rooted, dripping in crimson, mixed with pride, grief, and  _ love. _ She saw a face. A horrible, red face.

“What are you afraid of, I wonder, you arrogant little monster?”

She allowed her tendrils to recede, releasing Schmidt physically. Schmidt fell to the ground, soft cries of terror in her throat as she stared at the solidifying form of Johann Schmidt. Wanda observed as well, trying not to pity the woman for the way she feared her own father.

_ “Papa?” _ Schmidt whispered, crawling backward until her shoulders hit an unyielding obstacle and she could go no further.  _ “Papa, nein, bitte- ” _

Wanda saw the red-faced construct of memory and fear stride forward in Schmidt’s mind. She saw it backhand Schmidt across the face, and Schmidt’s body responded on the physical plane. She curled on the ground with a muted whimper as her father rained blows and insults upon her, and Wanda withdrew from Schmidt’s mind. That would keep the HYDRA woman busy for a long while.

Wanda glanced around the chamber. Rhodey was leaving the room with a determined look on his face, and she heard Natasha ask Sam how Vision was, as well as Sam’s optimistic diagnosis. She smiled softly, happy that her strange friend would be okay, then she looked to see how Steve was doing, and her heart clenched.

Steve was sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of that awful chair. Bucky’s head and shoulders lay in Steve’s lap, a grey blanket covering him from chest to feet. Steve was huddled over Bucky’s face, clutching Bucky’s shoulders and rocking him gently as he gasped with audible sobs.

Natasha was obviously torn as she made her way from Steve’s side to fasten restraints on Schmidt. Across from her, Sam was doing the same with Crossbones. Wanda’s feet were already moving to Steve, her brain catching up with her body as she put a tentative hand on her friend’s hunched shoulder. The flashes of emotions were so strong, she’d been able to feel them from across the room and she couldn’t have shut them out if she’d tried. Emotions she’d seen flashes of before when Steve had thought about Bucky in her vicinity, but she hadn’t tried to put the pieces together until this moment. They were heartbreaking in their ferocity, but through them she figured out what had happened. She knelt beside Steve and the man he loved. A man she’d never met, but she felt as if she knew.

“Let me see what I can do.”

Steve looked at her with such hope, tear tracks staining his face, and she didn’t want to let him down. She never wanted to let Steve down, not after all he’d done for her, but especially not at this moment. She placed her left palm against Bucky’s forehead, trying to locate the puzzle of his mind. The chair had done a number on him. His physical responses were intact, but none of his mental ones. Wanda was determined to find them. She’d always been the best at finding-

Minutes passed, and still Wanda felt nothing in the blank void beneath her spread fingers. Flashes of red lit up the darkness, but revealed still more  _ nothing. _ Not a single puzzle piece for her to reconstruct, and she swallowed her disappointment in herself as she looked up into Steve’s face and admitted that she couldn’t help. The despair that radiated from Steve made her want to weep. He pressed his forehead to her hand on Bucky’s head, his lips finding Bucky’s skin between her fingers as she felt a flash of something from her friend. She felt Steve let go of something, something monumental, and the tragedy was that it was too late for it to truly matter.

“I’m gonna take care of you, Buck,” Steve whispered against Bucky’s forehead, his breath tickling Wanda’s skin. “Even if you never come back to me, I’m gonna- ”

“Oh!”

Wanda felt the first flash from Bucky’s mind when Steve said his name, and she startled. He  _ was _ in there. He was, and new determination seized her.

“Oh, Steve, I- I felt something.”

Steve had raised his head when she’d flinched, a silent question in his grieving eyes, and she wasn’t going to fail him. She put her right palm on Bucky’s forehead, beside her left. He was in there, and now that she knew that beyond a shadow of doubt, she was going to find him.

“Keep- ” Wanda gulped, feeling the spark of Bucky’s mind slipping away from her. Steve could help. His voice had drawn Bucky out in the first place. “Keep talking to him!”

She knew what she had to do, even if she’d never done it to this extent before. It was a challenge, and an opportunity, and she refused to be afraid.

“I’m going to go inside- ”

She did. Her mind dived through her veins along with her red light, down through her fingers and into Bucky’s mind. She’d never been this immersed inside another person, and she was briefly overwhelmed, but she refused to be afraid. Bucky’s mind was dark and cavernous, and she was aware that she couldn’t hear Steve.

_ “Keep talking to him!” _

She felt her lips move on the physical plane even as her command echoed from her mind. She heard Steve’s voice fumbling with his emotions, and she let it wash over her. The words weren’t for her, they were for Bucky, and it was time for her to find him.

_ Ready or not, here I come. _

A dim light surrounded her, and she looked down at herself with curiosity. She was made of red light, a construct she’d created to explore. The light swelled in the darkness as she looked around, and she saw a hazy mist rolling around her glowing feet. She wondered if this was all her own creation, or if Bucky was influencing the landscape as well.

_ Where are you, Bucky? _

**_I’ve missed you so much, Buck-_ **

Steve’s voice surrounded her, and she channeled it like a beacon into the corners of the void. Bright light flared with Bucky’s emotions at the sound of Steve, mixing with Wanda’s light in a symphony of silent music. She could see now. She could see the puzzle, and the three figures fighting over it. She marveled at the way Bucky’s mind had fractured, even as she began to understand it.

_ Found you. _

The first figure was the Bucky Barnes from the history books, in a blue military jacket and dark fatigues. He had short hair and both his hands were made of flesh. Those hands grabbed desperately at the sound of Steve’s voice as it became tangible in his vicinity. He clutched the pieces of Steve’s voice to his chest, snarling at the second figure who was stealing them easily from his grasp. The second figure was the Bucky Barnes- the  _ Winter Soldier _ \- from the HYDRA files. He was clad in black tac gear and a muzzle-like mask and goggles that obscured his face. His hair was long and unkempt, and his right hand was gloved while his left was bare, the metal fingers gleaming as he took the other Bucky’s gleanings and shoved them into his pockets and holsters while the other Bucky screamed angrily for him to  _ stop. _

As the Winter Soldier stockpiled the pieces, some of them were fracturing. Wanda watched the crumbs sprinkle to the ground where the third and final figure crouched, shrouded in the mist. This man was a perfect combination of the other two. His hair was as long as the Soldier’s, his stubble was scraggly, and he wore layers of disheveled civilian clothing. Both his flesh and metal hands grasped longingly at the tiny scraps with which the Soldier provided him.  _ “Please,” _ she heard him say, his mouth barely moving.  _ “Please.” _

Wanda was beside them, as quickly as she could think to be there, and all three looked at her with suspicion.

_ “Get the hell outta my head,” _ said the Bucky in the blue jacket indignantly.

_ “Kakova vasha igra?” _ asked the Soldier with hollow calculation.

_ Quiet. _

Wanda told them and looked to the third man on the ground. He gazed up at her, eyes wide.

_ Come with me, _ she reached a glowing hand toward him, but he shrank from it.

_ “No,” _ he shook his head vehemently, his hair whipping around his face.  _ “You don’t want me. I’m nothing.” _

_ “Zhalkiy,” _ the Soldier growled with disgust.  _ “Chertovski zhalok.” _

He kicked the man on the ground, heavy-booted foot landing hard in his ribs. The man cried out softly as he fell prone.

_ Enough! _

Red surrounded the Soldier, freezing him in place while silencing him. The younger Bucky took a threatening step toward her, glowering, and she froze him, too. The third Bucky looked up at her warily from the dark ground, ignoring her proffered hand in favor of struggling to his feet of his own capacity. The mist was rolling in thicker now, higher, obscuring his face as effectively as the Soldier’s mask.

**_Come back, Bucky,_ ** Steve’s voice echoed above their heads, so strong she couldn’t tune it out.  **_Don’t leave me. Not again._ **

Bucky chuckled, the sound a mirthless rumble as he reached his metal hand up to grab a piece of Steve’s voice. He crushed it to dust and let it sprinkle to oblivion through his fingers.

_ “You should leave,” _ he told Wanda flatly.  _ “I’m no good. I’m not even a whole person. I’ve never been, not even when- ” _

He trailed off, briefly clapping the frozen form of the young Sergeant on the shoulder.

_ “It’s always been about someone else. It’s always been about  _ **_him.”_ **

The mist fell away from his face as he gazed up at Steve’s voice with bitter longing, and Wanda remembered a conversation with Clint right after Pietro’s death. Her tearful confession that she didn’t know how to live without her brother. They’d been together, inseparable for so long, she didn’t know who she was without Pietro.  _ “Well, I don’t really know who you are, either,” _ the gruff archer had told her kindly.  _ “Wanna find out together?” _

She still didn’t know exactly who she was, but she knew some things. She knew her history, her mistakes and her triumphs. She knew her chosen family, and she loved them. The way Sam teased her like Pietro had, the way Nat taught her like Magda had, and the way Steve encouraged her like Django had.

_ “You’re here because of him,” _ Bucky looked at her, as if seeing her thoughts. _ “Aren’t you?” _

_ Yes, _ Wanda admitted.  _ And also no. I’m here for Steve, but also for you, and for myself. I’m here because I want to help you. Do you want my help? _

He stared at her, her question clearly unexpected, and she entreated the benevolent old gods that he would accept her help. She knew how to help him. She  _ burned _ to help him.

_ “Yes,”  _ he said quietly, gazing intensely at her face.  _ “And also no.” _

His eyes dropped to look at his feet as he mimicked her previous answer.

_ Which is it? _

_ “I’m not a whole person,” _ he repeated to his shoes.  _ “I told you.” _

He looked up, but not at her. He looked at the other versions of himself, first at the young Sergeant, then the Soldier, and she suddenly understood.

_ They’re all you. _

His head whipped toward her.

_ “No.” _

_ Yes, _ she said gently.  _ Who you were, who they made you to be, and who you are now because of all of that. I can bring you all back together. _

_ “No!” _

He was afraid. The cavernous landscape trembled with his fear.

_ Why not? _

_ “They hate me. I hate them.” _

Pieces whirled above them, distinctive from the pieces of Steve’s words. She recognized some of the pieces. Some from flashes of Steve’s mind, some from the mission files she’d been briefed on. They all began to solidify-

_ -a young, gap-toothed boy with grey-blue eyes in his round face, making sure his sisters and brother had enough to eat. Making sure his sick, frail friend didn’t get himself killed. An older, but still too-young man in uniform holding a gun, watching his friends die around him in a snowy trench and yearning for a sun-soaked day on a beach with a skinny blond man who had to stop and catch his breath too often for comfort. That same young man, fighting a confusing blend of jealousy, admiration, and lust as he looked at the no-longer skinny blond man rushing into the fray of battle with a brightly colored shield. The young man screaming as he fell and fell and fell. Screaming as a doctor worked between his legs. Screaming himself to silence as electricity took away his memories and emotional resonance while leaving the skills of a proficient killer. Silent as a metal prosthetic was anchored to the bones and skin of his left shoulder and he was handed another gun and told on whom to use it. Silent, confused, as the blond man’s face flooded his mind and awakened memories. Screaming, confused, as that man told him who he was. Angry, violent, and full of self-loathing as he remembered. Remembered, and  _ **_ran-_ **

Wanda let the flashes fly away. She understood. Order in the chaos.

_ I’ve been there, _ she confessed sadly.  _ Hating yourself. Somedays I’m still there. But you can’t let it define you. _

_ “But it does. I think it always has, and now it always will.” _

_ It’s not just up to you, _ she told him kindly.  _ You’re only one piece. _

**_I love you, Bucky Barnes,_ ** Steve’s voice sounded as Wanda unfroze the Sergeant and the Soldier.  **_I think I’ve always loved you-_ **

The blue-clad Sergeant laughed in despair, and he and the third Bucky spoke at the same time.

_ “Too late, Stevie.” _

_ “ _ _ Zhalkiy,”  _ the Soldier grumbled behind his mask, but Wanda detected a note of longing in his voice.

_ Let me help you, _ she entreated the three figures.  _ Please. _

They all looked at her. The Sergeant squinted, his jaw locking with suspicion. The Soldier’s masked and goggled face was inscrutable, but his head tilted slightly. The third Bucky’s lips twisted, so afraid.

_ “I- I need help,” _ the Sergeant admitted first, dark and low as his mouth twitched.  _ “Help me.” _

_ “Da,” _ the Soldier said a heartbeat later, his voice flat and cold.  _ “Eto dlya luchshikh.” _

They both looked to the third figure along with Wanda, and he quailed with their scrutiny.

**_Wake up, Bucky,_ ** Steve’s voice swelled.  **_Wake up and come home with me._ **

_ “Yes, please,”  _ the third Bucky surrendered in a whisper.  _ “Please, I’m so tired.” _

Wanda smiled at him, all three of him, as the red took over. It ballooned from her construct to the three figures. It surrounded them, drawing them together, making them glow while their margins dissolved, merging them-

_ Wake up. _

The physical plane solidified around Wanda as she registered Bucky’s eyes opening underneath her hands and she removed them from his forehead. She shook her head, the sensations of reality coming back to her. The air was cold, the ground was hard under her knees, and she felt the cramp in her right calf. Flashes of joy radiated from Steve, and she looked to her friend with corresponding joy, so proud of herself and what she’d accomplished.

“Steve,” said Bucky, his lips twitching in happiness. “Hey, Steve.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. I’m here.”

She basked in the flashes of their reunion, tears welling in her eyes along with Steve.

“He- he’s gone,” Bucky breathed. “I can’t hear him anymore. He’s gone.”

_ No, _ Wanda thought but didn’t say.  _ Not gone, just- just  _ **_you._ ** _ You, and you are enough. _

She had a flash of her own. Pietro, Magda, and Django, smiling at her, because there  _ was _ magic in the world. In the world, and in her.

_ Remember that yourself, miri pena, _ Pietro smirked at her as he squeezed Magda’s hand in her mind’s eye.  _ You are enough. Freak. _

Wanda choked on a sob, clinging to her family as they faded. They disappeared as she became aware of Bucky struggling in Steve’s arms, and she moved backward on her protesting legs when Bucky sat up and retreated from both her and Steve, his back hitting the base of the torturous chair as he held the blanket tightly to his chest, his mind emanating shame while his cheeks flushed with it. His eyes roved around the room, like a wild animal cornered.

“Oh, God. Oh, fuck, Steve, I- ”

Bucky stopped as a noise from the door made all of them startle and focus on Rhodey as he came back inside the chamber. Iron Man was right behind him, and Wanda had to once again remind herself that he was an ally.

“Hey guys. Sorry I’m late,” Tony’s tone was characteristically nonchalant, but Wanda could feel his underlying anxiety and it exacerbated her own. “But it looks like you didn’t need our help after all.”

Behind him, over fifty U.S. soldiers began to file through the door. Wanda’s heart leapt, even though she knew they weren’t here for her. She was a long way from Novi Grad- not that it even existed anymore- and she had a visa to be in the United States with the Avengers. She was going to take the Naturalization Test in a few months time, to become a permanent U.S. citizen. Having Captain America himself sponsor her bid for citizenship had definitely been a boon.

“Tony,” Natasha said neutrally, positioning herself carefully between the soldiers and her team. “Didn’t think you got my message. We’ve apprehended Schmidt and Rumlow.”

A few soldiers made their way to the respective prisoners, taking them into custody and out of the room. Crossbones was still unconscious, Wanda noted with satisfaction, and all Schmidt did when the soldiers hauled her to her bound feet was mutter  _ “Nein, Papa, nein.” _

“You kidding me, Romanoff? I wouldn’t miss this party for the world. Though, it looks like you broke Junior.”

The face-obscuring part of his helmet retracted as he inclined his head toward Vision’s recumbent form. Wanda could hear the barely-concealed concern in his voice.

“He’ll be fine, Tony,” Sam had returned to his position beside Vision. “Don’t worry.”

Tony nodded stiffly, giving Sam a weak smile of acknowledgment.

“War Machine,” Natasha tried to keep her voice steady. “Report?”

“Too late for King T’Chaka,” Rhodey reported heavily. “The final Soldier’s been neutralized, however, and the Wakandan leaders have been briefed on the details of what happened. We’ll have to meet with the new King in a few days.”

Other soldiers were examining the bodies of the three Soldiers, beginning to load them on stretchers and take them outside.

“Yeah,” Tony continued when Rhodey had finished. “The assassin met up with the Crown Prince before he could get out of Wakanda. Didn’t end too well for him.”

Five soldiers came forward, advancing with weapons drawn. Wanda tried not to panic. She could sense they weren’t interested in her, but she instinctively stayed as still as she could.

“Wait,” Steve’s voice sounded to her right, incensed and afraid. “What are you doing?”

She looked at Steve as he rose to his feet, then to her left as the soldiers converged on Bucky where he sat underneath the blanket. They pushed him prone on the ground, uncovering him as they brought his arms behind his back, and she felt Bucky’s resignation as he allowed them to do it.

“Hey!”

Steve was a blur of movement in front of her. Red, white, and blue shimmered together as he tackled one of the men on top of Bucky. She was on her feet, red swirling behind her eyes and in her palms, ready to back Steve up. Ready to defend him and the man he loved. The man with whom she’d so recently forged a connection.

“Get away from him!”

Steve sprang to his feet, off the man he’d taken down, and he let a restrained punch connect with another of the soldier’s jaws, taking him out. Red energy encircled the remaining three soldiers, flinging them away. Wanda heard the sound of guns behind her, cocking. Aiming. Aiming at Steve, and at her. She looked at Steve’s determined face, giving him a small nod that he returned. They could fight their way out of this if they had to. Even if she didn’t want to.

“Tony, what the hell?”

Natasha’s voice was livid, and Sam was making a wordless noise of protest as well.

“Guys,” Tony objected, the impersonal tone of his voice making it apparent he was addressing the military men and not any of the Avengers. “C’mon, have some chill. You really gonna shoot Captain America?”

“Only if he makes us,” one of the commanding soldiers answered, his voice gruff and unfriendly. “He’s interfering with the final arrest.”

“Arrest?”

Steve asked with outraged incredulity. Wanda could feel it as well as hear it. She could also feel the flashes of anger from Natasha and Sam; the sad acceptance from Rhodey.

“Steve,” Tony was almost pleading. “Look, there was a video of him- of Barnes and the other two suspects. They murdered an entire building of civilians.”

“It wasn’t him,” Steve insisted. “They were controlling his mind.”

“I believe you,” Tony said honestly. “I do, and we can sort it out afterwards, but right now- ”

Wanda saw Bucky’s head lift minisculely, and she saw a flash of an older man with white hair and mustache, blood dripping from his nose and mouth as a metal hand gripped the top of his head. Bucky’s guilt suffused her and she hastily pulled her mind away.

“No,” Steve growled stubbornly, taking a step so he was in front of Bucky, shielding him from Tony and the special forces. “You’re not touching him. He’s been through enough.”

“Steve- ”

“You heard the Captain,” Sam was suddenly there, standing beside Steve in front of Bucky, glaring at Tony and the soldiers. “You’re not taking him.”

Wanda took a step in, joining the human shield in front of Bucky where he lay. She looked at Tony with sad determination, feeling his conflict. There was a burden on him, even greater than usual, and she felt for him. Rhodey was at his right side, devoted as always, not just to Tony but to the system of law and order he’d dedicated himself to, but Wanda could feel his disquiet. Natasha hadn’t moved from her halfway point between Tony and Steve, but Wanda knew Nat’s heart was with Steve.

“If you don’t move, now,” the commanding officer snarled at them all, sidearm leveled at Steve. “You will be removed by whatever force I deem necessary.”

“Goddamnit, Steve,” Bucky muttered to the ground behind them. “Goddamnit, you idiot.”

Wanda felt Bucky’s despair, and his shame, but she also felt the flickering wonder in his heart. The wonder that Steve, that all of them, would put themselves on the line for him.

“No,” Tony said, turning to the officer where he stood at his left side. “You can’t do that.”

The officer looked at Tony dubiously.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Tony defied him easily. “Look, that’s Captain America. If he vouches for someone, that’s good enough for me. Should be good enough for you, too.”

“You can’t be serious! You saw that footage, Stark. That’s the fucking Winter Soldier for Christ’s sake!”

“We can sort it all out when we get back to the States,” Tony assured him. “I’m not fighting my team over this. And I don’t like your odds if you try to fight them, either.”

The officer stared at Tony for a long moment. Tony matched his imperious gaze. Finally, the officer barked out an order for his men to stand down.

“Ross won’t like this.”

The officer warned belligerently as he holstered his gun. Tony smirked, his eyebrows waggling, expertly hiding the stress that Wanda could feel

“What else is new?”

The tension shifted as the remaining soldiers began to trickle out of the chamber. Rhodey volunteered to accompany the officer out, and Tony let him. Only when the remaining Avengers were alone did Wanda let her guard slip. She watched as Steve helped Bucky to his feet, making sure the blanket was secured tightly around him while assuring him there were clothes in the jet outside. Bucky’s mouth was set in a firm line, and humiliation wafted from him in the presence of Steve and these strangers. Humiliation, and skeptical gratitude, as if he expected this entire thing to be a charade that would come crashing down at any moment.

“Natasha, Sam, Wanda,” Tony said in greeting, coming slightly closer while still maintaining a respectful distance. “And Steve, you moron. You realize that soon we’re all gonna have a nice little chat with some charming representatives of the military-industrial complex, don’t you?”

“I figured,” Nat answered for everyone. “Good thing you and General Ross are so tight, huh?”

“Bite me, Romanoff.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it.”

Tony suddenly noticed Steve’s shield lying abandoned on the ground and went to retrieve it. Wanda saw a flash of that same white-haired man from Bucky’s mind inside Tony’s, but this time he was smiling indulgently. She knew who he was. She knew what it meant.

“Here, Cap.”

Tony handed the shield to Steve with as much reverence as he was capable of. Steve took it, stowing it on his back.

“Thank you,” Steve told him with wide-eyed sincerity. “For everything.”

“Yeah, I know, I’m awesome. You’re welcome.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Sam muttered. “Someone wanna help me with RoboCop?”

Wanda was about to volunteer, but Natasha beat her to it. She and Sam went to Vision’s side, raising him upright and helping him walk out of the room between them. Wanda was about to follow them, when Steve spoke, his voice strained.

“Bucky? Come on, let’s go.”

She saw Bucky staring at the chair, something dark and determined in his eyes. He slowly reached out with his metal hand, grasping the seat.

“He okay?”

She wasn’t sure who Tony was asking. Probably Steve, though he didn’t answer.

“Bucky?”

Bucky ripped the seat out with a strained cry, hurling it across the room. It shattered the glass of one of the cryo chambers, making Wanda, Steve, and Tony flinch.

“What in the- ?”

Tony began to ask, and Steve made as if to stop Bucky, but Wanda put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.

“It’s okay, Steve. Just let him do what he has to do.”

They watched as Bucky ripped the chair apart, dismantling piece after piece until there was nothing left but wires and rivets, but he still didn’t stop. He was on hands-and-knees, smashing at the floor, his left hand chipping the concrete while his right hand began to bleed. The blanket was beginning to slip low on his hips.

“Bucky, stop!”

Steve bent down and put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, trying to draw him back, but Bucky wrenched himself from Steve’s touch with a strangled cry. He leapt to his feet, violence and confusion in his aura, looming over Steve while Tony took a defensive posture, his armored hand raising. Wanda was moving before she could think, inserting herself between Steve, Tony, and Bucky.

“You did it, it’s gone,” she told Bucky, trying to quell her pounding heart in the face of his murderous expression. “It’s over. You can come with us now.”

She held out her hand to Bucky, who stared at it, then at her. Recognition dawned slowly in his eyes, and he looked from her to Steve with mortification. He pulled the blanket up higher on his waist. He wouldn’t even look at Tony.

“It’s not over,” he warned her, sounding defeated. “It won’t ever be over.”

“You’re right,” she told him knowingly, smiling softly. “It never is. But it can get better.”

He returned her fragile smile, tentatively taking her outstretched hand with his metal one. It was smooth and cold, something whirring underneath the surface as his fingers entwined with hers. She looked to Steve, who was uncomprehending, but relieved. She looked to Tony, who was uncharacteristically speechless, but he gave her an encouraging smile. Wanda led all three men from the chamber, holding Bucky’s hand all the way back to the safety and warmth of the Quinjet.


	19. Chapter 19

* * *

Steve barely registered the flight back to the compound. He sat by Bucky on one of the padded passenger benches the entire way, not touching, but close. Bucky didn’t say a word the whole trip. He hadn’t said anything to Steve since he’d woken up in his arms in front of the now-destroyed chair. He’d only spoken to Wanda, who’d glanced at Steve, then shown him where the spare clothes were. He was wearing a pair of Thor’s civilian khakis, one of Steve’s navy sweatshirts, and a leftover pair of Clint’s boots. Steve tried not to let the image lull him into false contentment, even if it made his heart beat a little faster to see Bucky here, wearing his sweatshirt. He tried not to stare, focusing on the other side of the plane in front of him, grateful just to feel Bucky’s presence at his side.

No one attempted to talk to him or Bucky, although the other Avengers spoke softly to each other around them. The atmosphere inside the jet was far more relaxed than before. Rhodey had ridden back to the States with the military, but Sam and Wanda traded banter in the cockpit, and even Natasha and Tony were getting along unironically.

“Hey, Tony,” Steve heard Nat say eventually. “I think Vis just blinked.”

Vision was stretched out on the padded cot in the rear of the jet. Tony ended his cell phone conversation with a “thanks for handling this one, Rhodey, I owe you,” and hurried through Steve’s line-of-sight to see how Vision’s recovery was coming along. Steve glanced surreptitiously to his right at Bucky. Bucky continued to stare down at his hands. Steve couldn’t read his expression without staring too long, so he looked away.

_ Say something! _

He didn’t know what to say. The few inches between them seemed a vast chasm made up of years of separation. Bucky had inevitably changed during those decades, even with the healing Wanda had administered to his fractured mind. Steve had certainly changed since the last time he’d spoken to Bucky on that cliff in the Austrian Alps. He was a fool for thinking that everything would be okay between them now.

_ It doesn’t matter, you coward, just say something! _

But he didn’t know what to say, and he hated himself for it.

“Hold on before you open the door, okay Sam?”

Tony was on the phone again when Sam landed the jet in the hangar, but he gestured at Sam to wait before he pressed the button that controlled the ramp. Sam pulled his hand away and looked expectantly at Tony along with Steve and the rest of the Avengers. Steve’s pulse raced with foreboding, and he felt Bucky’s breathing slow beside him.

“Right, got it,  _ sir,” _ Tony’s voice dripped with sarcasm on the honorific. “I’ll tell them.”

He hung up with an exaggerated eyeroll and moved to the center of the jet to address the team. Everyone, except Vision, gathered around him.

“So, consequence time. And don’t think I don’t appreciate the irony of becoming the responsible team disciplinarian here.”

“Tony,” Nat’s voice was half-exhortation, half-worry. “What is it?”

“Barnes,” Tony looked at Bucky and Steve used the excuse to look also. “Nice to finally meet you by the way, I know Cap’s been looking for you for a few years.”

Bucky grunted in acknowledgment, dipping his head imperceptibly. His hair fell over his ears.

“Unfortunately, you are to remain confined to the compound until we get everything sorted out- Steve I don’t want to hear it, it was this or a max-security prison cell, alright?”

Steve had looked from Bucky’s impassive face up to Tony, automatic protest on his lips even as he understood the reasons behind Tony’s words. He closed his mouth and nodded stiffly.

“There will be a long legal battle ahead of us,” Tony continued in warning, mainly to Bucky. “We’ll get you the best lawyers, I promise, but you should probably expect to live here for a while. If you’re amenable.”

Bucky grunted again in acceptance. Then, he swallowed and spoke gruffly to Tony.

“Thank you.”

Steve wondered if Bucky remembered what he’d been forced to do to Tony’s parents. Guilt filled his chest, clawing into his throat. Would Tony be this generous to Bucky if he knew? But how could Steve tell him now, with all that was at stake for Bucky?

“Yeah, well,” Tony smiled tightly. “Don’t thank me just yet. Not ‘til this is over.”

“What about the rest of us?” Sam asked. “You made it sound like there would be consequences for everyone.”

“Right you are,” Tony tore his gaze from Bucky. “The rest of you are invited to a little hearing three days after Thanksgiving. Well, everyone but Vision. They don’t really consider him a person.”

Tony inclined his head toward the back of the jet where Vision still lay.

“Their mistake,” Wanda said softly.

“Be that as it may, Vis lucks out of it. The rest of you, we’ll brief you on the procedure over the next few days. Any questions?”

Steve had many questions. None he wanted to voice in front of the others, however. Particularly not Bucky.

“Not right now,” he answered for the team after a brief silence. “Thanks, Tony.”

He tried to infuse his gratitude with all the meaning he possibly could.  _ Thanks, for doing what I can’t do. Thanks for helping him. Thanks for helping me keep him here with me. _

“Gotta be good for something,” Tony said lightly. “Okay, Sam, you can hit that ramp now.”

“Wait, here,” said Wanda to Sam before he could walk back to the controls. “I got it.”

She flicked red energy toward the cockpit. A moment later the hydraulic door hissed into its descent and the Avengers began to exit the Quinjet. Nat and Wanda wheeled Vision’s cot out first. Tony and Sam went last, Sam asking a hushed question that Steve only caught pieces of. Sam was concerned about the possibility of his Thanksgiving holiday being cut short. Probably warning Tony about his formidable Grandma Wilson. Steve smiled fondly at his silver friends as he stood and turned to his gold.

_ Keep it light. _

“You coming, pal?”

Bucky looked up at him. Steve resisted the urge to offer Bucky his hand to help him stand. Bucky wouldn’t want that, he’d want to do it on his own.

“Don’t got a choice, do I?”

There was unconcealed bitterness in Bucky’s voice as he rose to his feet. Steve wanted to tell him that of course he had a choice, but the lie caught in his throat. Bucky sighed as he looked at Steve’s expression.

“No, you’re right. I do have a choice, it’s just not a very good one.”

“You gonna run again?”

Steve heard the fear in his voice. The unspoken plea for Bucky to stay. Bucky sighed again.

“Thought about it, when Stark was talking. Made a whole escape plan in my head. But maybe it’s time to stop running and face the music. Let them decide what to do with me for everything I’ve done.”

“It wasn’t you. You know that, right? You didn’t have a choice in any of it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Bucky shrugged and Steve heard the whir of his left arm. “I still  _ did _ it all.”

Bucky held out his hands, palms up, staring at them as if they were some foreign creatures that had attached themselves to his arms. Steve didn’t know what to say, but the expression on Bucky’s face made him jump to assuage him, even if that meant he had to argue with him.

“Buck- ”

“No,” Bucky dropped his hands to his sides and set his jaw. “I don’t wanna talk about it, Steve.”

The words suddenly came to Steve, and he wanted to talk about it. He wanted to ask how much Bucky remembered of his life before HYDRA had gotten their hooks- or tentacles- into him. He wanted to ask how much Bucky remembered about what they’d made him do once they had. He especially wanted to ask if Bucky had heard any of Steve’s speech when Wanda had been inside his mind, and what Bucky thought about it.

_ You have to tell him that you saw those videos. You have to tell him as soon as possible, don’t put it off until it’s too late. Don’t repeat the mistake you’re making with Tony. _

But that thought was the most intimidating of all, and Steve didn’t want to risk this precarious peace he had with Bucky. He shut his mouth, nodding to Bucky that he’d respect his wishes. Bucky’s face softened.

“You gonna show me to my cell?”

“Your room, you mean?” Steve interjected fiercely, quelling his horror at Bucky’s matter-of-fact tone. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“Slip of the tongue,” Bucky said sheepishly. “I meant to say room.”

Steve couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. It bothered him that he couldn’t read his friend the way he’d once been able to.

“Let’s go, then.”

Steve and Bucky walked down the ramp together, and it felt wonderful to Steve to have Bucky beside him again. It felt so wonderful that, as they paused so Steve could hit the switch to close the ramp behind them, Steve could pretend for just a moment that everything was going to be fine.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates a day apart, what? I got on a roll. So much angst in this chapter, fair warning.

* * *

Steve, Bucky, Tony, and Vision had Thanksgiving dinner Thursday night at the compound, since Bucky wasn’t allowed to leave. It was as awkward as Steve had envisioned it, when it was only going to be the three of them minus Bucky. At least, it was awkward for Steve. Everyone else seemed to be doing just fine.

“So, the fowl you devour is always a turkey? Or will any bird do?”

Vision didn’t eat, but he sat at the table beside Tony and across from Bucky, observing the mealtime ritual with frequent questions that Bucky was happily answering whenever he could. When it came to questions involving modern celebrations of the holiday, Bucky deferred to Tony, where he sat across from Steve.

“And, you have always had access to turkey, Mr. Barnes? Even during your American Depression?”

“Leave the poor man alone, Vis,” Tony admonished around a mouthful of stuffing. “You could easily ask me or Steve.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Bucky laughed. “Yeah, my dad always made sure we got a turkey, and my mom always had a few yams and at least one pie. Even during the years when we weren’t sure what day good old FDR was gonna call Thanksgiving. Remember that, Steve?”

He looked with affected joviality at Steve sitting beside him and Steve forced himself to answer.

“Uh, yeah, I do.”

Steve had never really enjoyed Thanksgiving. The rich food he’d managed to choke down had always done a number on his stomach ulcers. More often than not he’d found himself puking halfway through dinner. Now, although he understood the appeal of a holiday where people were allowed to stuff their faces alongside family and friends, the residual ramifications of the celebration and its history left a bad taste in his mouth. Murdered Native Americans and religious hypocrisy. Happy Thanksgiving.

“I believe I downloaded something about this into my memory banks,” Vision contemplated. “The President switched the traditional date of Thanksgiving to appease major retailers?”

“Vis! Just ‘cause you can’t eat doesn’t mean you have to force Barnes not to either.”

Tony’s speech was mildly slurred, even as he poured himself another glass of the wine only he was drinking. Steve and Bucky’s small glasses, accepted out of politeness, remained untouched in front of their plates.

“That’s okay, I don’t mind,” Bucky reassured Tony before turning back to Vision. “Something like that, yeah.”

Bucky jumped into a long-winded explanation of what he remembered about the controversial Thanksgiving of 1939. Steve half-listened as he poked at his mashed potatoes, making the pool of golden gravy spill over onto his green beans. He wanted to be glad about how eager Bucky was to talk to Vision. Bucky had been intrigued by him ever since the synthetic humanoid had fully recovered a day after Siberia. He and Vision had engaged in several talks that Steve hadn’t been privy to, and he tried not to be jealous that Bucky was talking to someone else. That wasn’t right, Bucky should be able to talk to whoever he wanted to, and of course he’d be interested in Vision. Bucky had always loved science fiction, from  _ Flash Gordon _ to  _ H.G. Wells, _ and he’d loved reading about scientific advances in real life, too. About medical advances-

_ -Bucky’s eyes widened as Steve, barely ten years old, showed him a vial of the extract and a syringe. _

_ “Doc Michaelson says it goes right into the muscle,” Steve told his friend with hushed awe. “And now I don’t have to eat as much liver anymore.” _

_ “Holy cow,” Bucky said with what Steve felt was the appropriate level of admiration. “Does it hurt?” _

_ “Yeah,” Steve admitted. “But it’s better than those slimy livers.” _

_ “They ever gonna find a cure for good?” _

_ “I dunno. Maybe.” _

_ Steve shrugged, his mind trying to picture a day where daily injections and plates of raw liver were nothing but a distant memory. _

_ “If I ever get the money,” Bucky promised him solemnly. “I’m gonna become a doctor and find it.” _

_ Steve believed him. It was unlikely, but his friend was good at things in a way he both admired and envied. If anyone could do it, it was Bucky- _

Bucky had always been so interested in what Howard Stark was doing, ever since he’d heard him speak as a teenager. That almost-flying car at the fair, the night before he’d shipped out. The night before their lives truly went to Hell. Before Bucky had been tortured and brainwashed into killing his childhood idol. The same idol with whose son Bucky was now engaged in amiable conversation-

It wasn’t that Bucky was talking to others, Steve realized with a pang. It was that he was being friendly to everyone  _ but _ Steve. He’d talked to Wanda and Vision the most, but he and Sam had even struck up an affectionate rivalry. Bucky was warier around Nat and Rhodey, but it wasn’t as if he avoided them. Not the way he’d clearly been avoiding Steve ever since Steve had shown Bucky to the guest room that was now officially his. The only times he’d consented to go anywhere with Steve were when they’d been going somewhere someone else would also be. Bucky would speak to Steve in vague pleasantries, but he always seemed happier to see other people. Then, as soon as he and Steve were alone again, the facade would slip and he’d be back to his stiff neutrality. Bucky had been avoiding him for the past day-and-a-half, ever since Nat, Wanda, Sam, and Rhodey had left for their families Wednesday morning, only greeting Steve’s tentative knock on his door so they could come to Thanksgiving dinner together. When he saw Steve there was no light in his eyes, the way there had once been. The way Steve knew his own eyes were lighting up, his heart beating faster, every time he had the joy of seeing Bucky here.

That hurt. It hurt so badly that Steve thought he might scream from the bitter heartache of it. To have Bucky back, to have him so close, literally beside him, and yet farther away than when he’d been on the run? Steve couldn’t stand it. That foolish,  naïve hope he’d nursed for almost two years as he’d chased after Bucky came crashing down around his ears. He’d lost Bucky, and ultimately the reasons why didn’t matter. He’d lost him.

After forty more minutes of this exquisite torture, Tony mercifully finished the second bottle of Pinot Noir and decided to call it a night. He loudly asked Friday to clear the table, beaming at Bucky’s interest in the swarm of robots that descended on the scene to carry away the dishes and leftover food they’d also been the ones to prepare. Steve had managed to finish his entire plate, and he congratulated himself on the effort. Each bite had tasted like ash; he might as well have been eating a plate of those hated livers from his boyhood.

Steve was  _ angry, _ and he was afraid of what he would do with that anger.

Once the robots had vanished Vision glided away through a wall. Tony waved off both Steve and Bucky’s offer to help him to his rarely-used room in the compound. They heard Friday’s voice guiding him as he stumbled down the hallway, gently teasing him about his level of inebriation.

“I’m gonna go to bed,” Bucky dropped his cheerful facade as he pushed his chair in. “Good night, Steve.”

_ One more try, _ Steve begged himself desperately.  _ One more. _

“Here, I’ll come with you.”

He pushed in his own chair and hurried to follow Bucky out of the dining room.

“I can find it on my own.”

There was no anger in Bucky’s voice. There was  _ nothing _ in Bucky’s voice. Not the gentle teasing there would have been, before. Not the irritation Steve might have expected now. Just- nothing.

Steve’s last thread snapped.

“Why won’t you talk to me?”

Bucky froze in the corridor five feet in front of Steve, his back to him and his shoulders hunched. Steve knew he’d been yelling, and he took a deep breath to try and calm himself.

“I’ve been talking to you,” Bucky said in a steady voice. He didn’t turn around. “We’re talking right now.”

Steve took another deep breath. It didn’t work.

“Look at me!”

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Bucky turned around and looked at Steve.

“Okay, I’m looking at you. I’m talking to you and I’m looking at you. Happy?”

“No,” Steve took a step forward, watching Bucky twitch but hold his ground. “I’m not happy, Buck. You’ve been avoiding me. You talk and smile and laugh with everyone except me, and I want to know why.”

“You know why,” Bucky said heavily. “You’re not stupid, Steve. You act like it sometimes, but I know you’re not.”

A new fear struck Steve. The fear that Bucky already knew about the videos. Sin or Rumlow had told him, and he knew. He knew that Steve had watched them.

“Guess I am,” Steve retorted hotly, trying not to betray his fear. “‘Cause I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You know what happened to me,” Bucky’s shoulders slumped but his voice remained flat. “You saw. You know what I am.”

“So does everyone else!”

The exclamation tore its way from Steve’s throat before he could stop it, and it horrified him. Bucky visibly reeled, taking a fraction of a step backward before he steadied himself. His metal fist clenched.

“You’re right,” the first hint of anger made itself known in Bucky’s tone. “They all saw, but none of them knew me before. The don’t know who I used to be, so they don’t expect me to be him now. You do.”

Steve opened his mouth to retort, but the truth of Bucky’s words stunned him to silence. His anger began to fade.

“The others? They see me as a charity case, and it bothers me, yeah, but it’s better than the way  _ you _ see me. You look at me with hope in your eyes, and it makes me want to fucking  _ die _ because I’m not who you think I am.”

“Bucky- ”

“I’m not the man you knew, I’ll never be him again, and I know you’ll never accept that. Now, please, just leave me alone.”

Bucky started to turn away, and Steve couldn’t let him. Steve needed him to stay. He needed him.

_ Tell him! _

“I love you.”

He said it quietly, but it seemed to echo through the corridor. Bucky stopped and looked back at him wistfully.

“Yeah, I know. I heard you, when you were talking to me in my head in Siberia. When Wanda was in there. I heard you.”

“Okay,” Steve was embarrassed, yet relief washed over him, carrying the last of his anger away. “Good, you know. I know you love me, too.”

_ Tell him how you know, _ Steve’s last shred of decency implored him.  _ Tell him everything. _

Steve stifled his conscience. He couldn’t tell Bucky about the videos. Not now, not when it might destroy everything.

“I loved you,” Bucky corrected him without malice. “I can’t love you anymore.”

“That’s not true. There’s more to love than sex, and there are things we could do about- I mean, if you wanted to- ”

Bucky smiled at him bitterly.

“I’m not talking about sex. Although, yeah, there’s that, too. I’m talking about  _ me.” _

He ran his right hand through the air in front of him, from head to groin.

“They made me, all of me, into  _ this, _ and I can’t love you the way I used to. I can’t. I’m someone else, and you’re someone else, and we both have to accept that and move the hell on.”

“No,” Steve shook his head fiercely. “We’ve changed, sure, but that doesn’t make us completely different people. We’re the same people, we’ve just grown. We’ve grown up.”

“You’re probably right, in your case. Not in mine.”

“Wait,” Steve tried as Bucky turned to leave once more. “I don’t agree, but if you think you’re someone else, fine. Fine, but give me a chance to get to know you again. Give me a chance to fall in love with who you are now.”

Bucky was walking away from him. Steve watched the back of his head shake from side-to-side, his long hair rippling. He wanted to run his fingers through Bucky’s hair. He desperately wanted to touch Bucky, in any way, but Bucky wouldn’t let him.

“No, Steve.”

Bucky disappeared around the corner, and Steve sprinted after him, putting his enhanced body to its full use. He rushed by Bucky, trying to cut him off, but Bucky was ready for him. There was the sound of metal plates clacking together and Steve found himself gripped bruisingly by his upper arm. He snarled in surprise, striking at Bucky’s left arm underneath his sweater to no avail until the panic receded from Bucky’s eyes and he released Steve with a look of horror. Steve stumbled back, rubbing at his bicep, until his shoulders hit the wall.

“Don’t try that shit around me, you idiot, I could hurt you!”

“You could  _ try.” _

Bucky sighed wearily at Steve’s bravado.

“You wanna fight me, Stevie? Or you wanna let me go to my room and forget this ever happened?”

Steve wanted neither.

“You called me ‘Stevie,’” he said instead of answering. “You haven’t called me that since- since you’ve been back here.”

Bucky’s eyes widened slightly.

“You used to tell me you hated when people called you that. Said it made you feel small and weak.”

“Yeah, it did, except for when Mom or you said it. Then it made me feel, I don’t know,  _ loved.” _

“Steve,” Bucky said warningly. “I told you it’s not gonna happen. Just let me go. For once in your goddamn life, listen to me and let me go.”

“I can’t,” Steve shook his head with stubborn defiance. “You say you can’t love me? Well, I can’t  _ not _ love you, so I guess we’re at an impasse.”

Bucky looked at him with despair and exasperation, his eyes flashing. Steve was so thrilled to see the life in Bucky’s eyes that he had to bite back his inappropriate smile.

“What do you think’s gonna happen at your hearing? At my trial? You really think I’m gonna be around for much longer?”

Steve had already thought about that. About what he would do.

“I won’t let them touch you. I don’t care what it takes. You’re innocent, and I won’t let anyone punish you for what isn’t your fault.”

“You’re gonna throw away everything you’ve built here? Your friends, your reputation, for what?”

“For you.”

Bucky’s exasperation roared into anger.

“Goddamnit, Steve! I’m telling you  _ no. _ If you say you love me, then respect that.”

Steve’s heart shattered.

“I won’t tell you what to do or how to feel,” he promised calmly, injecting ice in his tone to hide his misery. “But you have to extend me the same courtesy. Maybe it’s not just about you. I’m Captain America, aren’t I? Gotta defend the innocent and make sure justice is served.”

His voice dripped with sarcasm, but Bucky rolled his eyes angrily at the performance.

“Let me go to bed, now,” he growled. “Can you do  _ that _ for me at least,  _ Captain?” _

Steve took a step back, sweeping his arm invitingly in the direction of Bucky’s room.

“I’m not stopping you,” he said coolly. “Good night.”

Bucky glowered and stalked down the corridor. He turned the corner. A few seconds later Steve heard a door close forcefully.

“Fuck,” he swore to the empty corridor. “Fuck!”

He wasn’t giving up, he thought savagely. Bucky was trying to push Steve away to protect him, but Steve wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t let him. Not now. Not now that he’d found him again.

_ You should have told him about the videos. _

“Yeah, I know, shut up,” Steve grumbled at himself out loud. “He probably already knows, anyway.”

_ Then he’s waiting for you to admit it. You need to tell him. _

No, what he needed to do was give Bucky the night to cool off. Bucky probably wouldn’t even open the door to Steve tonight. He could tell him tomorrow. Later.

_ It’s always going to be later, isn’t it? Because you know. You know that he’ll never forgive you for seeing him like that- _

Steve whirled to the wall behind him, his fist hitting the plaster and leaving a sizeable dent. That’s what he was good at, wasn’t it? Breaking things.

_ Enough. _

Steve was seized with the burning desire to prove to himself- and to Bucky, even if he’d never know- that he could do  _ something _ right tonight. He found himself moving back toward the dining room before he’d fully put a plan into formation.


	21. Chapter 21

* * *

“Yeah, what’s up?” Tony called when Steve knocked on his door. “Uh, come in, I guess.”

Tony’s speech was clearer than when he’d left the table, but he was obviously still tipsy. Steve opened the door and found Tony sitting on his couch watching a recorded football game from earlier in the afternoon.

“Figured it was you,” Tony laughed. “Barnes and I aren’t quite to the ‘knock-on-each-other’s-door-in-the-middle-of-the-night’ stage of our relationship, and Vision wouldn’t bother to knock, so- ”

Tony waved Steve inside, gesturing for him to sit on the couch with him. Steve did, pretending to watch the game as his brain tried to talk him out of what he’d come to do.

“Eagles or Lions?” Tony turned to him during a commercial break. “No, wait, don’t tell me. For you I’m betting- Eagles.”

He fumbled for the remote on the coffee table in front of him, hitting the fast-forward button and silencing a falsely chipper woman as she gushed about the qualities of one fabric softener over another.

“More of a Lions fan, actually.”

“Well, lucky you,” Tony grumbled. “‘Cause those bastards are killing Philly right now.”

His finger punched the remote to bring the game back on.

“Tony, I gotta tell you something,” Steve blurted before he could convince himself not to. “Can you pause the game a second?”

Tony had turned to look at him with devilish amusement, various quips no doubt burning on his tongue, but he blinked hard when he saw Steve’s expression and said nothing. He paused the game.

“Sure, Steve, what’s up?”

Steve gaped at him a moment, floundering at the enormity of what he was going to do. What it would mean for his relationship with Tony, what might happen to Bucky because of it, and what might happen to the Avengers as a team. That small, dark part of him, the part Tony had once expressed doubt of its existence, told him that he  _ wanted _ something bad to come of this. That would show everyone. That would show  _ Bucky- _

Steve was disgusted with himself.

“It’s Barnes, isn’t it?”

Tony’s prompting brought Steve back, gave him a starting point. It also gave him no more excuses not to do what he should have done almost two years ago when he’d first found out. All the excuses about protecting Tony, and Bucky, fell away, and he knew he'd only been thinking of himself. Protecting himself above his friends. Some hero.

“Sort of.”

“Worried about the trial, huh? Not gonna lie, it’ll be tough, but I think he’s got a shot. I managed to wrangle one of the best lawyers in the country. She’s Bruce’s cousin actually, which is what gave me an in. Well, that and all the money- ”

“Bucky’s the one who killed your parents,” Steve interrupted in a rush, kicking himself for his lack of finesse. “I mean, it’s not his fault, HYDRA made him kill them, but- but it was him they used to do it. I’ve known for over a year, and I should have told you before, and I’m sorry. Please don’t take it out on him.”

Tony stared at him bug-eyed for a several seconds while Steve prepared for the worst. He tried to make his face as placating as possible, silently willing Tony to understand. Or, more likely, if he didn’t understand, not to punish Bucky for Steve’s selfishness. If he’d told Tony when he should have, this wouldn’t be an issue. Tony would have had time to process the information, and Bucky would be safe from his wrath, and  _ it’s my fault, not his, please see that Tony, please- _

Tony burst out laughing. He laughed and laughed, doubling over where he sat, holding his side. It was Steve’s turn to stare, dumbfounded by this reaction for which he hadn’t thought to prepare. He thought Tony must have gone insane, or maybe he was too drunk to understand what Steve had told him. He thought Steve was pulling a prank or something. That had to be it. What else could explain this reaction?

“Oh my God, your face,” Tony gasped for air. “I wish I had a camera.”

“Tony,” Steve started cautiously. “I don’t think you understood what I said. I said that- ”

“Yeah, yeah, your old War buddy killed my parents when he was all Manchurian Candidate, I got that."

Tony paused and wiped at his streaming eyes. Then a contemplative look came over his features.

"Wait, do you understand that reference?”

“What?”

Steve had no idea what was happening. He thought maybe  _ he _ was the one being pranked.

“Manchurian Candidate. They made two movies of it, first one would have come out after your little swan dive into a glacier.”

“No, I- I mean,  _ yes. _ I’ve seen both versions of the movie, haven’t read the book, but- but I think you’re missing the point here, Tony. You knew?”

Tony raised an eyebrow. Steve had known him long enough to see the gears whirring through his brain. Not for the first time, he wondered if that was why Tony spent so much of his time drinking. To slow those gears. To dull that marvelous brain. Also not for the first time, he envied Tony's ability to get drunk.

“Yeah, I knew," Tony said too easily. "Didn’t know that  _ you _ knew. Gotta say that hurts a little, but I get it.”

There was still mirth in Tony’s eyes, but Steve saw the first flash of the betrayal he’d expected to see all along.

“But, you’re helping him?”

Tony made an exaggerated face at him, trying and failing to mask how he felt.

“You really think that little of me?”

He sounded hurt for the first time in the conversation.

“No, but- but come on, Tony, it  _ is _ pretty damn noble of you. I mean, it would be, for anyone.”

Tony dipped his head in concession. He opened his mouth to say something, but Steve cut him off, his curiosity burning.

“How long have you known?”

Tony smiled with melancholy pride.

“Remember back when we first met, back on that S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier when I hacked the system? An awesome little feat that you had some strong opinions about, as I recall.”

“Yeah,” Steve conceded impatiently. “What about it?”

“Well, I got a lot of info from that hack. Not enough to figure out that S.H.I.E.L.D. was HYDRA, oops, but enough to find a report on the true nature of Mom and Dad’s  _ accident. _ The file made it seem like it was just the Russians who were responsible, after dear-old-Dad’s experiments, but yeah. I knew it was the mysterious Winter Soldier who pulled the trigger, so to speak.”

“And you didn’t try to go after him?”

“I thought about it, sure. You don’t forget a video where someone bashes your father’s head in and then strangles your mother, no matter how blurry the footage.”

Tony’s verbosity faltered, and Steve’s heart stung.

“Tony, I’m so sorry.”

Tony held up his hand with a firm shake of his head.

“It’s been twenty-four years, Steve. I’ve processed. I’ve grieved. I’ve moved on.”

Steve didn’t fully believe it was that simple.

“Okay, but- ”

“That alien army I saw in the wormhole still gives me worse nightmares than that video. Maybe that’s fucked-up, I don’t know, but that’s the truth.”

It was Steve’s turn to nod his head in helpless acknowledgment.

“And then I heard about the Winter Soldier going after Fury in D.C.,” Tony’s familiar loquacity returned to him, and Steve was only too glad to let him unleash. His noticeable inebriation was falling away. “I heard how he wasn’t some heartless, immortal assassin, but your brainwashed friend from back when polio was still a thing. How you were trying to find him and save him, roping about half of the Avengers into your little quest. And, I’ll admit, it took me a few benders, not to mention epic hangovers, to fully process the info, but I put all the pieces together. I  _ am _ a certified genius, after all.”

Steve nodded again.

“I still should have told you.”

“Yeah, you should have,” Tony said sharply. “After all the grief you’ve given me about keeping secrets that jeopardize the team.”

Steve welcomed the rebuke. He knew he deserved far worse, but Tony’s ire left as abruptly as it had flared up.

“But, I guess that makes us even, huh, Cap?”

Tony gave him a conciliatory smile. Steve returned it. The heavy weight that had been crushing down on him since Zola had shown him that footage in the underground room at Camp Lehigh lifted from him as easily as a balloon. Of all the reactions he’d expected from Tony, every scenario growing worse and worse in his mind as time went by, he’d never expected this. That Tony would already have known, and beyond that, that he would have accepted and forgiven.

He’d grossly, unfairly, underestimated his friend. He really was terrible at reading people. He’d hoped Bucky would be amenable to his affections right away, even though it was completely unreasonable of Steve to expect that, given the time that had gone by and all the horror inflicted on Bucky in the interim, everything would be how it had been before. That Bucky could ever fall into his arms like the heroine of some Mills & Boon brown book. He’d misunderstood both Bucky and Tony, but maybe he could learn from that. Maybe everything  _ could _ be alright someday, he just had to give it time. He had to be patient.

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Hey, look, Barnes and me are never gonna be the best of friends,” Tony warned thickly. “Sometimes it’s really hard for me to look at him. But I know that’s not his fault, and that’s just life, isn’t it?”

“You’re a good man, Tony.”

Tony rolled his eyes in the face of Steve’s sincerity.

“Well, gosh,” his voice dripped with sarcasm that couldn’t hide how much Steve’s words had touched him. “That means a lot, especially coming from you.”

“It really shouldn’t.”

Tony shook his head firmly.

“Nope, you don’t get to sit here and feel sorry for yourself, Rogers. You can brood just fine on your own time. Now, are we gonna finish watching the Lions annihilate the Eagles, or what?”

“Sounds good.”

Steve laughed and settled back against the cushions as Tony played the game. He let the last of this particular weight float from his mind, at least for the moment, and allowed the sounds of the television to temporarily alleviate the new weight that had taken its place.


	22. Chapter 22

* * *

All of the Avengers returned by early Sunday afternoon, glowing with the optimism gleaned from their time with their families. Sam arrived last, but he was still hours before the meeting scheduled with their legal consultant. They all met with her in the boardroom, sitting around the table and listening to her speak. Vision and Bucky were there, too, even though they wouldn’t be at Monday’s hearing.

Bernadette  _ “call me Bernie” _ Rosenthal was a pretty woman who looked several years younger than her age of forty-one. Bernie was a friend of Pepper’s, but she had never represented Pepper, Stark Industries, or any other superhero before. She was a lawyer in New York City and had been chosen as their consultant for both her skill and her impartiality. Tony had informed Steve of all this over the previous few days. He and Pepper were currently back together following an hours-long phone conversation the afternoon after Thanksgiving. Steve wanted it to last this time, though he knew it probably wouldn’t. He didn’t know how to advise Tony or Pepper, given his history with relationships, even if either of them had asked him. All he could do was watch them orbit each other and hope for the best for both of them. Whatever the best might be.

_ And what if that ends up being your relationship with Bucky? What if the best for both of you isn’t each other? _

Steve shoved his thoughts to the back of his mind and tried to give Bernie his full attention. Observing her attitude and mannerisms, he was strongly reminded of Peggy. That sent his mind spiralling down a new rabbit hole. He wondered if Peggy was lucid enough to have heard the news about the Avengers’ hearing. About Bucky. He swore to himself that if-  _ when- _ Bucky was acquitted, Steve would take him to visit Peggy. Peggy, and Sabine, and maybe Bucky’s sister-in-law, nephews, and great-niece. If Bucky wanted to, of course, but even if he didn’t Steve knew that he should do it himself. He should reach out to them. He should have done it years ago-

_ Listen up, Rogers! This is important, and it affects more people than just you. _

Bernie had the hint of a Brooklyn accent in her commanding voice, which had made Steve instinctively more receptive to her words. She had begun the meeting by reminding them that the Avengers weren’t on trial, not yet anyway, and how their success at this hearing would be crucial in ensuring that continued to be the case. She reminded Bucky that his trial was separate from the hearing, although the outcome of the next morning would influence the outcome of his own legal battle. Bernie knew Bucky’s lawyer, Jennifer Walters, both personally and professionally, and had great respect for her.

“I talked with Jen briefly last night, and I’m not here to step on her toes,” Bernie told all of them, but she was looking at Bucky. “We agreed that if you want to ask any legal advice about anything other than tomorrow’s hearing and its ramifications, that’s fine, but I would advise you to wait until you’ve spoken with Jen before making any decisions.”

She tucked a wayward strand of curly auburn hair behind her ear and let her gaze drift from Bucky’s position at the end of the table to Steve and Natasha, sitting across from her. Steve swallowed hard as he nodded. Walters was scheduled to fly in from San Francisco early Tuesday morning. He didn’t know if he could wait that long to start finding ways to help Bucky with his case. It made him feel powerless.

“Honestly, your biggest hurdles right now are justifying why you concealed the location of three known terrorists who were not on American soil, and then flew to apprehend them yourself.”

Steve tried not to let it get to him that Bernie had lumped Bucky in with Rumlow and Sin, calling him a terrorist as if he were an accomplice to his own abuse at their hands. Bernie was the consummate professional, stating facts with neutrality, but it still angered him. He could feel Tony and Nat’s eyes on him, silently imploring him not to react. That rankled Steve further, but he managed to hold it inside.

“Not to mention,” Bernie continued. “Attacking U.S. soldiers, who had obtained the authority to be in Siberia through proper channels, in defense of one of those terrorists, and then pulling strings to allow said terrorist to avoid incarceration by harboring him in your own home.”

Steve was on his feet before he could think about it, fists clenched at his sides and eyes narrowed. He heard Nat and Tony call out his name, Natasha at his right side and Tony from the end of the table opposite Bucky. He couldn’t see any of the other’s reactions. Steve’s rage cooled almost instantly, but only because of the way Bernie was looking at him. She regarded his reaction with calm insight and one of her eyebrows quirked up as he apologized and retook his seat.

“That is exactly the reaction I was trying to provoke,” she said impassively. “And I knew it would be from you, Captain Rogers.”

Steve felt the blood rush to his ears. He was so damn predictable. So damn easy to manipulate.

“They will be asking you, all of you, those questions. And I was being generous in using the word  _ terrorist. _ They’ll use far more inflammatory terminology, I can guarantee you.”

“So we’ll be prepared for that,” Natasha said smoothly beside Steve. “And we’ll be prepared not to react.”

Steve muttered his agreement.

“Frankly, as a sign of good faith, you may have to concede your initial agreement to keep Mr. Barnes here and have him transferred to a prison facility.” 

Bernie looked first in Tony’s direction, then her eyes swept down the table from Wanda and Sam on Tony’s right, to Natasha across from Bernie, to Rhodey beside her, and finally to the end of the table at Bucky. Her eyes ghosted over Steve, which did nothing to allay the panic rising in his chest.

“That will earn  _ you _ some points, Mr. Barnes, as well as the Avengers. It may even quell the rapidly growing list of countries petitioning the U.S. for your immediate extradition. At least temporarily.”

“What?” It took every ounce of Steve’s self-control for him to remain seated this time. “No.”

“Steve,” Bucky growled from the end of the table, clearly troubled. “Shut up.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. Steve looked at Bucky, who was watching him with a sullen expression. He hadn’t spoken more than a few words to Steve since their fight Thursday night, and everyone else could sense the tension between them. Nobody wanted to bring it up with Steve. Just as no one had brought up what they’d seen and heard him do in Siberia.

“I’ll go,” Bucky said to Bernie with forced nonchalance. “I don’t want any special treatment.”

“You may,” she told him bluntly. “Regardless, as I said, you’re not my client, Mr. Barnes. I’m only here to consult the Avengers on their best course of action.”

“We’ll consider it,” Natasha assured Bernie after a quick look at Bucky. “Since James is willing. How do you think we should go about justifying our actions in Siberia?”

Steve tore his gaze from Bucky to Bernie for her response.

“I don’t know if you  _ can _ adequately justify yourselves, but I think you can mitigate the fallout. You’ll need to stress the urgency of the situation. How you had information that you felt you had to act upon immediately. Emphasize how you attempted to contact Mr. Stark but didn’t reach him. Emphasize how, once Mr. Stark got the message, he contacted the proper authorities and brought them to take Schmidt and Rumlow into custody. You’ll also need to release any information you received regarding Schmidt, Rumlow, and Mr. Barnes’s whereabouts and plans.”

Steve’s head spun to look at Natasha. She was looking at Bernie, unflappable as ever.

“We’ll discuss that,” Natasha nodded. “There’s some sensitive material in that information.”

Steve wanted to laugh at the understatement. As far as he was aware, only he and Nat knew what was on those videos, not counting Rumlow and Sin. He didn’t want some tribunal watching every horrific detail of Bucky’s ordeal with uncaring scrutiny. He didn’t want Bucky to have to go through that, knowing they were watching his torture and degradation, silently judging it.

He didn’t want Bucky to know he’d already seen it.

“That’s my recommendation,” Bernie concluded. “That, and a continued emphasis on your view of Mr. Barnes’s innocence. If we can get them to acknowledge the mind-control aspect tomorrow, it will bode well for the trial.”

Bernie asked if any of them had any questions. Sam and Wanda murmured something to each other on Steve’s left side, and Steve knew that he should have questions, but despite his best efforts to channel Captain America he couldn’t form a coherent thought through the desperation urging him to do something to help Bucky right-the-fuck  _ now. _ He wanted to look at Bucky again, but he was afraid. He was afraid of the cold anger he might see on Bucky’s face when he looked at Steve, or, worse, he might see indifference in Bucky’s eyes as they slid away from him.

“I have a query,” Vision spoke after a pause. “What if the outcome of tomorrow’s hearing is unfavorable?”

Bernie faltered for the first time. Whether that had to do with the question itself or who was asking it, Steve felt a chill run down his spine. Bernie glanced from Vision to Tony, wordlessly passing the mantle to him as they’d no doubt discussed in a prior conversation should this question arise.

“Then all our lives are going to get a lot more complicated,” Tony answered, making no attempt to sugarcoat his words. “Ever since S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, and especially after Ultron, Johannesburg, and Sokovia, they’ve been circling us, trying to figure out how to get us under better supervision without forcing us into a quandary with no good resolution.”

Steve had known that, of course, but the way Tony said it now, so resigned, made him acknowledge the full weight of the burden on Tony’s shoulders. Stark was by far the best member of the Avengers to deal with this, but Steve hadn’t bothered to see the toll it had taken on his friend. He hadn’t wanted to think about it, knowing that after S.H.I.E.L.D. had been so irredeemably corrupted by HYDRA that he would never let another organization of faceless bureaucrats control him. He wouldn’t, and if they tried to make him, he knew he would fight it.

The Avengers Initiative had been in limbo while the world governments hashed out what to do with a group of metahumans who wanted to use their powers to fight for the Earth’s safety, and Steve had enjoyed existing in that limbo. He’d been free to act with minimal supervision as he’d searched for Bucky, and he’d avoided Tony not only because of his guilt regarding what he knew about Tony’s parents, but also because of his guilt over letting Tony deal with the aggravating details of what allowed Steve and the Avengers to act with the freedom they’d been enjoying.

_ Things Steve Feels Guilty About. Section: Tony Stark- _

“We need to be better world citizens,” Tony said with fierce conviction. “We need to do better than we’ve done.”

He took an audible breath. When he spoke again, his tone had softened.

“Then again, that’s easy for me to say. At the end of the day, people like me can hang up their armor or put away their guns. But for people like- like Banner, for example, it’s a little trickier. And as for people like you, Cap, you think it’s fair to say that you fall somewhere in the middle of those two extremes?”

Steve nodded stiffly in agreement. People whose powers were such an integral part of them, like Bruce, Wanda, Vision, or the surprising number of new metahumans popping up around the world, would inevitably be subjected to more invasive scrutiny than people like Tony, Rhodey, Sam, or Clint. Thor, if he ever returned to Earth, could probably coast on diplomatic immunity from being alien royalty, and Natasha’s enhanced status had yet to be revealed to the public, so she might be able to slip through the cracks like she’d always managed to do. But for him, and for Bucky, the lines were fuzzier. Maybe it wasn’t even fair to lump himself in with Bucky, because Bucky, like Natasha, hadn’t  _ chosen _ to be made different. Not like Steve had. Steve had chosen to be made into what he now was, and that meant he’d also chosen everything that went along with that initial decision, whether he’d thought it through or not in the moments before the needles went into his veins and altered him irrevocably.

He’d fooled everyone. Erskine, Peggy, Howard, and even Bucky, back when they were kids on the schoolyard. They’d thought him  _ good; _ mistaken him for noble and brave, instead of what he truly was. He wasn’t good, he was just  _ angry. _ Headstrong, self-righteous, and arrogant. From that, he’d chosen this, and it was his fault if anyone suffered because of his inability to accept the consequences of that choice. He knew the U.S. Government would never let him go without a fight, but he knew he  _ would _ fight. He would fight their control of him, and he would fight whatever injustices they and any other country tried to inflict on Bucky in the name of the law.

“So, as a team, we’re going to make sure we do our damn best tomorrow. We’re going to do better at assuring the world that the Avengers are an asset, not a liability, while safeguarding everyone’s rights to life, liberty, and all that jazz. And we’re going to see that Barnes here gets a fair trial. How’s that sound?”

Tony finished his spiel with an inspirational flourish. Nat was right, Steve reflected as the others nodded and murmured their agreement around him. Tony  _ was _ better at leading the Avengers. Steve just wished he could believe that everything Tony had said was possible. He resisted the urge to glance at Bucky.

“You ever thought about law school?” Bernie asked Tony with droll humor. “I could put in a good word for you.”

“You’re a few years too late,” Tony quipped back, tapping a closed fist over his chest. “I have a real, hundred-percent-human heart again.”

“And to think I wasn’t going to charge you for the five minutes you went over the hour,” Bernie laughed while looking at her watch. “Of course, it’s not like you can’t afford it- ”

“Hey,” Sam interrupted their banter. “Since you’re still here and all, I’ve got another question. What happens if we don’t like any of the options they give us? Are they really gonna let any of us just walk away after all we’ve seen, no matter the level of power we have?”

Steve knew Sam was asking for himself, but he could tell that Sam was also asking on Wanda’s behalf. Wanda would be another casualty of Steve’s anger. Her track to citizenship had been expedited thanks to him, but if he made waves, made himself unuseable as Captain America, that would all come crashing down for her. They might lock her up with Bucky. They might lock up every uncooperative Avenger, powered or powerless, because this was their life. Sam might be able to turn in his wings, go about his business, but Steve knew it would destroy his friend. Sam had told him how much he loved being the Falcon. How much he loved the feeling of soaring through the sky; how much he loved tinkering with Redwing and other gadgets in Tony’s lab. How much he loved fighting for something that wasn’t the military that had gotten Riley killed.

“It’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to walk away entirely,” Bernie answered Sam. “But there are people like myself who will continue to fight for your rights in court. For the rights of all metahumans and superheroes, current or former, who want to be allowed to live in peace.”

“Great,” Sam said dryly. Steve could hear the guarded fear in his voice. “So what I’m hearing is teams of lawyers and years of trials with no guarantee they won’t lock us all up without provocation?”

“If we follow the law,” Rhodey began sharply. “If we do what we said we were here to do when we joined the Avengers- ”

“Oh, don’t give me that! Not all of us are decorated officers willing to lick boots and kiss asses to- ”

“Guys!”

Natasha interjected. There was hurt in her voice. Sam and Rhodey looked at her, their residual anger fading.

“Let’s just see what happens tomorrow,” Nat told them. “Before we start fighting amongst ourselves. Let’s see what they’ll give us to work with.”

“Good advice,” Bernie seconded. “I’m sorry, but I have to run. Call me if you have any questions.”

They all thanked Bernie and Tony walked her out. There was another, longer, awkward silence once they’d left.

“Hey, man, sorry,” Sam apologized stiffly to Rhodey. “That was low of me.”

“I get it,” Rhodey nodded at Sam. “It’s cool.”

Steve resisted the urge to look at Bucky. He longed to make amends, but he knew it wouldn’t be so easy.

They briefly discussed what Bernie had told them, then adjourned for the evening. Steve went to the gym. For all the effort he put into wearing himself out, he had trouble sleeping that night.


End file.
